


Compromised

by CatNerdsOut



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Post-Canon, Redemption, So much angst, Spies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:49:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26982424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatNerdsOut/pseuds/CatNerdsOut
Summary: “What if there was another option?  You could help,” she whispered in a rush.  “You could choose to help me.  There could be peace.  Because I’m still coming to put an end to the Kree expansion, whether the Supreme Intelligence believes it or not.  I am coming to end Them.  You could help me.”Following the events of the movie, Yon-Rogg returns to Hala and begins acting as a spy for Carol and the Skrulls.
Relationships: Carol Danvers/Yon-Rogg
Comments: 32
Kudos: 60





	1. The Endless Wake

**Author's Note:**

> Let’s call this a writing exercise to see if I can keep up with my betters and write a proper plot. Fingers cross that this goes well.

Yon-Rogg woke abruptly.A cold sweat clung to him, scattering bumps across his arms.Blood pounded in his ears and his breath hitched as he fought for control over his traitorous heart.The pounding beat so loudly it seemed to echo off the walls in the quiet, darkened room.Only his heart and his rapid breath broke the stillness.

The dream continued to plague him since his return to Hala.

He shifted onto his back as his eyes adjusted to the dim predawn light.Hands rested at his sides and he turned his palms upward in a relaxed meditative pose counting the pauses between each inhale and exhale, forcing the body to obey when the emotions would not.The mind would follow; he would make it do so.Gradually the ceiling blinked into focus.And he remembered how utterly alone he was.

He should have mastered this by now.

Sleep rolled away like an ebbing tide, but he shut his eyes against the day.With each measured breath consciousness washed over him, dragging the dream ever further into the light.His heart rate slowed then eventually returned to normal.Satisfied that his body’s reaction to the dream was under control, he sat up and moved to the edge of his bed.The shade rose unveiling the city at daybreak and as he stared out the window he finally allowed his mind free rein.

The dream was always the same.

Except this time, it wasn’t.

The desert sun beat down overhead, hot sand crunching with each step as she neared.The star overhead blinded him as he stared up at her, lighting her hair ablaze like a golden crown.He had never been more proud.Or more broken.But hope roared to life in his chest when she reached for him only to wither and die under the desert sun with the dawning realization of what she meant to do.

“You can’t do this,” he implored as she looked on, her face an impassive mask.

His heart hammered dully pushing his blood— their blood— through his veins.Terror snaked up his spine.What would happen to him when he returned?Would he be slaughtered on sight?Or worse, if he somehow did manage to survive, what sort of life awaited him there when everything familiar was hoisting him into a damaged drop ship?He passed all point of caring about how he now appeared to her, how pathetic he must look, devoid of control or options.Unable to best her and unable to even goad her into killing him to spare him from the penance the Supreme Intelligence would surely demand of him for this failure— this terrible ultimate failure— he begged shamelessly.

“Vers, _please_.Don’t send me back.”

This wasn’t right.

He watched in horror as a faint sneer curled her lips, a look of contempt he had never seen her direct at himself.Panic clawed, desperately seeking an escape and he surrendered to its pull.His eyes grew wide and frantic and his voice rose in volume with each word.“You can’t.You can’t send me away.Don’t make me leave.”

But her eyes were cold and dark as the hatch fell down, imprisoning him in the ship, his glass coffin.The engine ignited.With the mere flick of her wrist she lit the pyre and his broken craft spiraled towards the stars in a sickening series of loops.As the air thinned and he broke through the atmosphere, his heart felt like it was being cleaved in two, blood pouring from his chest and pooling at his feet.The engine hummed a funeral dirge as the cold embrace of space and oblivion rushed to greet him.He felt his life drain away and the stark finality of death seeped into him like ice, freezing the very blood in his veins.Then the spark from the engine exploded in an uncontrolled blaze.Heat overtook cold and C-53 became little more than a pebble in the distance as he was consumed in flames.

But that wasn’t how it happened.

Yon-Rogg rubbed the back of his neck.He returned three endless days prior and much to his surprise, still waited for his formal debriefing with the Supreme Intelligence.All that would change today.He was out of time.Soon he would kneel in practiced devotion to a deity that could not love, could not empathize, could not understand, but could only condemn and punish.He had ignored every rational thought to find her and now would face the repercussions of his failure.His every thought, every decision, every flickering emotion he felt would be sifted through.

Bury it, he silently commanded.Bury it so deep that They can’t find it.They can only enter through the doors left ajar.He had succeeded only once before, he thought.Maybe.Maybe it was success, maybe They just didn’t care.Maybe it was one more lie he told himself to feed into the story of the great Yon-Rogg.But back when his mother had died suddenly while he was off-world on a training mission he smothered the grief so deep beneath stoic, impersonal facts that when he descended the steps of the Supremor’s temple he continued in the same measured attitude for hours.His mother forgotten albeit temporarily, let alone the memory that she was newly deceased.Later in the privacy of his apartment the scaffolding supporting the flimsy pretense of control snapped and he crumbled in a sobbing heap onto the floor.

Maybe that was the way of things: to pin down the thoughts and emotions under the sheer force of will until alone and weak one could finally succumb.Maybe that was the way of the Kree: to force truths aside until one would break under the weight of the lies.If that was the case, he had at least been an experienced teacher.

His eyes strayed to the nightstand, to the lone item on the surface: a twisted shard of metal.He had taken to running his fingers over like a token since his return.He always intended to return it to its owner, but the time never seemed right.How would he explain its presence or its purpose?How would he explain why he kept it?Yon-Rogg grimaced.There would never be time now.Then he leaned over to open the drawer.With a swipe the relic was banished from sight. 

What time was it?Disparate thoughts, the dire and the routine, fought for space.

It was early.Hala’s sun just peaked through the skyline, bathing the room in a cheerful hue.If he pretended hard enough, he could imagine the sharp rap at his door.Now he had taken up the vigil, waking early taunted by memories just like she—

No.Stop.Control it.

With a sigh he rose and dressed in his training gear.Too much time stood between the hour of his summons and the waking dawn.Too much time for his thoughts to wander and slip and doors to be thrown open wide.If they opened they might never shut again.It was time to lose himself in the mundane.

The city rose slowly.Kree left their buildings in the constant daily march.Storefronts unfolded like petals with the sun’s rays.He observed all around him with a cold detachment, as though it was no longer the world it once had been.The scales had fallen from his eyes and everything that once was warm and vibrant felt cold, washed in dull grays.He had never risen to his rank from an altruistic desire to protect.Ego had driven him.Hubris that he would never fail to overcome a challenge.All the same knowing that he had protected Hala, comforting and familiar Hala, had granted its own degree of satisfaction.It wasn’t so comforting or familiar now.He chafed against the realization, but now wasn’t time to dwell on it.

He approached the public transport station, navigating through the growing crowd.He stood at the line that would take them to his old gym in an older section of the city.Somewhere comforting and familiar.Standing at the platform he turned his head to speak to her—

Stop, fool.She’s not here.

He felt his stomach clench with shame and anger and the ready quip died on his lips.Not for the first time in the past several days had he fallen back into habits only to have reality jar him back into the present.He turned to move to the opposite side of the platform that would stop outside of the Starforce headquarters.The curious stares of other commuters followed him as he rushed away.He ignored them.

He watched the clusters of people at the transport hub.Close friends, mere acquaintances familiar only in passing during the same time of day, everyone seemed to be grouped.Collective, had he really only had her for company?Had his mission, had she, eaten away at every moment of his life for the previous six years?Had he truly applied his entire self to mentoring her and still failed so spectacularly?

Stop.No more.

The transport whizzed along the track and Yon-Rogg counted the pauses between breaths.Inhale.Exhale.And again.Again.Until nothing else existed but numbers and breaths.

Upon exiting the cab at the station, he turned and stared at the huge monolith before him.With a heavy sigh he squared his shoulders and began the long walk up the stairs to the entrance.At each step he listed another task to busy himself before his assigned time of communion.

Korath found him almost immediately.

“Commander,” he nodded.Yon-Rogg returned his greeting and turned towards the armory lockers where personal combat gear was kept.His second fell into step along side of him.

“The new operatives have been approved by the Supremor.I will begin their evaluations as soon as they arrive.”

Ah, yes.The new members of Starforce.Korath must have been positively needled with only Att-Lass and Bron-Char for company during training the past couple days.He knew better than to assume the man mourned Minn-Erva or...Minn-Erva.

“I wanted to inform you myself before you heard the news.” Korath spoke as he did everything: with gravity and seriousness.“I have requested a transfer to the Accusers following the end of this term.It has been approved.”

Yon-Rogg paused, his steps faltering as he glanced at Korath.“I see,” he responded.He resumed his pace.

He would not ask what drove Korath from Starforce.Undoubtedly it would be all the reasons Yon-Rogg himself expected to be thrown in his face in short order.The commander was compromised, had allowed his personal feelings to override his judgement to salvage their doomed mission to Torfa, and had unwittingly contributed to the death of one of their team and countless other Kree.Korath’s honor would not allow himself to follow someone so wholly unsuitable to the position.Regardless of how the hierarchy or the Supremor would judge him, he could not follow someone he held in contempt.However he might attempt to hide it, that disdain had colored their few interaction since returning from C-53.

But none of these failings could Yon-Rogg allow his thoughts to skate across even briefly, and he accepted his second’s words on their face.Korath’s underlying revulsion against Yon-Rogg’s failings were as relentless as Yon-Rogg’s own self-interested avoidance of them.

“I will be sorry to see you go,” Yon-Rogg offered politely.“You are a good man.”

Korath did not return the sentiment, offering only a curt nod before retreating the direction they had come.

Yon-Rogg didn’t care.What was one more fracture in the mess his life had become?He probably wouldn’t even live to see the full scope of the fallout.

Att-Lass and Bron-Char he found as he entered the locker room.The two men clustered around a table strewn with disassembled armor, each holding a different piece for cleaning and inspection.

“Commander.” They both snapped to attention as Yon-Rogg entered and headed towards his own locker.He had not seen either of them since C-53, only learning they had both arrived back on Hala safely because Korath had sought him out immediately upon his return.

“As you were,” he responded mildly with a wave of his hand.The less anxious they acted, the better for everyone involved.

“Korath was looking for you,” Att-Lass offered hesitantly.

“He found me.”Yon-Rogg rummaged around his locker as though looking for his gauntlets, as though they were not neatly resting on the same shelf they always occupied.

Att-Lass and Bron-Char shared a nervous look behind his back.

“And how are you doing, Commander?” Bron-Char asked.

Yon-Rogg picked up the gauntlets and closed the locker slowly, precisely before turning to look at the two remaining members of his team.

“Just fine.Thank you,” he replied as he calmly left the room.In his wake he heard Att-Lass and Bron-Char as they squabbled about who had the greater share of responsibility in the stilted exchange and their hissed whispers followed him down the hall.

He entered the training room filled with various objects from sturdy to fragile.Few used gauntlets to manipulate gravitational fields due to the level of concentration and control required.It had always been a point of pride how well he had taken to the tool.Now it was a much needed respite to distill time down to the moments and settings and controls.Yon-Rogg set the maze to the most difficult setting before selecting the targets made as delicate as crystal.This would do.

Att-Lass and Bron-Char’s concern was well meant, even understandable.The team was now half of what it had been just a few days ago.Even if they were ignorant of his summons, which they likely were, they were apprehensive with news of strangers joining their team.Understandably so, when the nature of their missions meant they were often behind enemy lines with only their comrades to depend on.And after Torfa trust was in short supply.They would adapt.There was no other alternative.And he...

He would either survive until dusk or he would be dead.And then it really wouldn’t matter anyway.

One of the glass baubles shattered in the field.His focus was slipping again.He reset the targets and began again.


	2. The Gallows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I planned on posting this later to try to establish a posting schedule like someone more organized, but I am weak and surrounded by bad influences. XD

Yon-Rogg was counting again.Standing over the dark hexagon he watched, transfixed, as the surface shimmered, rippled, and settled.It had finally arrived, he was out of time, and he stood gazing upon his gallows.He knelt on the pad, palms facing upward in the pose of a penitent sinner, counting as the silver strands curled and snaked up, grasping him.Keep them closed, he thought.

Inhale.

He was pulled into the simulation.

Exhale.

His eyes opened, blinded by the bright form growing and taking shape before him.

It was Vers. _Of course_ It was Vers.What finer torture could a vengeful god concoct than parading around in the face of his executioner?If he hadn’t endeavored to cease all wandering thoughts once he stepped onto the communications pad, he would have sighed with relief that the Supreme Intelligence wore this face and that at least one contingency had been worked out.He had been planning and meditating on this very scenario since his wounded drop ship had escaped C-53’s atmosphere.

“How do you like my new look?”The Supremor asked with a wink and a toss of hair that could almost be called playful were it the original and not the copy.

He focused on counting his breaths and surrendered to the silence that stretched between master and servant.

“Another failure, Yon-Rogg,” the copy spoke in a dull voice, crossing Their arms and shifting Their artificial weight to jut out a hip.“We are disappointed.”

He bowed his head, full of shame, but he would not bother with a defense of his actions.What was the point?He would either suffer exile, torture, or death.Nothing he could say would change it.His fate sealed itself the very moment he shot Mar-Vell all those years ago.The pupil would always surpass him and he would always fail.He would always end up here.Best to get on with it.

“Really?”The Supremor scoffed.Disdain dripped from Them.“Has the mighty Yon-Rogg been brought so low that he won’t even defend himself?”

He kept his gaze low.“I have no words to justify my actions.”

“Seven thousand, five hundred, twelve.”

Yon-Rogg looked up suddenly.His face was etched with confusion.What were They counting?

“How many Accusers Ronan lost,” They explained with a shrug.“In light of this, your pleas for a softer touch regarding the weapon may have been warranted.”

He released a ragged breath.

“May have been,” They warned.

He was not out of danger yet, but the possibility of survival glowed like a faint ember.And he didn’t want to die.Desolate as his life had turned since C-53, it was still his and maybe it could become something better, though he knew not what, nor could he imagine how.But none of these sparks were given the space to flourish into thoughts, not now with Vengeance so close and wearing the face of Vers.They were shut away faster than they could fully form.Later they could be picked apart and pondered, but now he desperately wanted to live and prove he was more than this shattered wreck.

“Surely you have more to say, Yon-Rogg.Some opinion or commentary about your time on C-53,” the copy said with a sharp, annoyed edge.“You’re far too arrogant to keep your opinions to yourself for long.”

“Yes, Your Eminence,” he said in a shuddering rush.Not for the first time he marveled at how realistic the simulation was.“The Terran instructed that I relay a message.”

The Supreme Intelligence smiled full and sardonic then laughed.“The Terran,” They repeated, gesturing towards Their current form.“Really?”

“Vers is dead,” Yon-Rogg answered stiffly.They mocked his distant label, but he needed that distance when he stood so close to the copy and clung to the separation the distance offered with all his might.His very life might depend on it.His sanity certainly did.

“You can’t lie to Us, Yon-Rogg.” They stepped close, too close.The unnaturally green eyes mere inches away.“You’re glad she lives.”

He would not shiver.He would not flinch.He remained perfectly still and impassive, his eyes on the false horizon.Counting.

“Tell Us her message.”

And he did.Though with his measured tone it lacked the force of Ver’s confident threat.

The Supremor laughed.It was a light laugh edged with derision.It was the laugh of one who would not be swayed and would not change course.“She’s cute.”

“With respect, Your Eminence, I don’t think the threats should be discounted.”

They hummed in a manner that was so reminiscent of Vers that he thought he might weep.One... two... three... four...

“If a god errs is it truly a god?”The Supreme Intelligence queried as They walked through the simulation.

The switch in tone and conversation was abrupt.Yon-Rogg looked at his feet willing them to move as he trailed behind, but made no answer.It was not his place to debate philosophy with the Supremor.

“We asked you a question, Yon-Rogg,” the prompt delivered with a backwards glance and a threatening tone.He felt as though he might gasp for breath and his heart raced.Control it...

“No,” he began hesitantly, “the very nature of divinity is perfection in all things.”

The Supremor hummed with approval.“Then you must have faith in yours that this is according to Our plan.”

He hesitated.

“Is there something you wish to say?”

He didn’t, but it was better not to be seen as defiant.“I will not fail You again.”

A look passed over the Supremor’s face.The Supreme Intelligence looked almost sad or disappointed, as though the embodiment of all collective wisdom knew something that Yon-Rogg did not about his very self.How much had they seen as They peered into his mind?How much had he managed to keep concealed?Later he suspected this was the moment They knew how far he would fall.

“Our time is up.”

In a rush of light and sound he was ejected from the simulation.

It was done.He had delivered her message, and surprisingly, had escaped further harm.A shaky breath escaped and he stopped counting.He had his life, at least, even as disregarded as his message was.Her message, he corrected.And the doors remained closed.He had not allowed his thoughts to stray, had not even allowed himself to consciously consider his thoughts roaming.For a second time he managed to prevent detours into his thoughts during his interactions with the Supreme Intelligence.It unnerved him that it was even accomplished all while he congratulated himself on his escape.Was it truly an escape or had he merely slipped the trap to land in the pit?

If a god errs is it truly a god?The words tormented him.But the words the Supremor wielded as proof of Their power, hinted at vulnerability.Not only had They had rejected Vers’ parting words, They considered her challenge as nothing more than the threats of an unruly child in the midst of a tantrum.

Could a god be built?Did a god have to constantly prove their divinity to their supplicants? _A true god need not prove themselves, anyone else is but a charlatan._ The old, now apostate words rang in his ears.He was no philosopher, but if the Supremor truly were divine, then why did They only reflect back what They were shown?If he felt angry and agitated, the encounter was riddled with doubt and condemnations.If he maintained calm no matter his failures, the exchange was tolerable.Was he only alive because of his forced stoicism?Were they simply suppressing their own essence based on the teachings of a machine?Were the Kree worshiping their own creation at the expense of their very souls?

It mattered little.He miraculously held onto his life.The nature of the Supremor was of less consequence than the thud of his heart pushing blood through his veins or the slap of his shoes against the pavement.This mattered.His life mattered.Relief slammed into him with full force.He sucked in the evening air, cold and damp, but he was grateful despite the discomfort.Once he arrived at his apartment exhaustion overtook him.He was utterly drained.Never had his thoughts and emotions railed against him so.But he had time now.He had _survived_. 

* * *

Yon-Rogg stepped into the hot shower, letting the scalding water burn away the day, sending it cascading in rivulets before draining away.

The shock had dulled incrementally, but it still pulled at his every thought.He wasn’t sure what he expected from the Supreme Intelligence.He entered the simulation fully expecting to hover on the razor’s edge between life and death, a single misspoken word sealing his fate.It almost would have been a relief to have been unburdened from all his unwanted thoughts so permanently.Almost.What had he expected?Death?Exile?Imprisonment?All likely punishments, deservedly so.But there had been... nothing.Not even a demotion.

The Supreme Intelligence didn’t offer mercy, at least not in his experience.And for once he wished he had participated in the heretical conversations Vers edged so close to when she fervently wished to know if her experiences matched his.It wasn’t mercy; it couldn’t be.Likely it was a manipulation to cement his loyalty in the wake of this disaster, an attempt to return him to the same zealous devotion he had before C-53, before Vers.

The attempt, he feared, was doomed to fail.He was already so very different than when his team embarked for Torfa.

He threw the valve and the wash of water cut off with a hiss.His forehead rested against the smooth tile, eyes screwed shut.He tried counting.

When exactly had he thrown away his life?During the rescue or the return?

It wasn’t all about Vers.Not entirely.He missed everything about his life from before.The steady ease he felt with himself, the certainty he was doing the right thing, the respect of his comrades.Now those things were gone, not even their ghosts remained.It wasn’t completely about her loss.It was also about his failures.

But it was also about her loss, in part.Maybe it was because they shared the same blood.Maybe it was because they shared so many experiences.Maybe it was because in that small spitfire of an alien he had found the one person with whom he could let the mask slip.

None of that mattered now.He was caught adrift in a half-life.Bland, colorless, rudderless.A waking dream with neither direction nor end.

If a god errs...Did the situation on Mar-Vell’s ship not count?A Terran overpowering a god seemed like it was not part of a master plan.Could a god be overpowered?Could a god be... wrong?

If They were wrong about Vers, what else were They wrong about?He scoffed, frustrated with himself and his own wandering thoughts.None of it mattered either way. 

He grabbed the towel and sopped the water from his skin before dressing for sleep.

He collapsed onto the edge of the bed with a long exhale.The day was ending.Long shadows stretched their fingers across the city.Neon lights winked on in the darkening sky.He would return to the same endless wake he had existing since his expulsion from C-53 and nothing could change that.He could only make peace with it.

Had he eaten anything over the course of the day?A faint pang in his gut answered.This was hardly the first time he had been so wrapped up in a series of tasks that meals had slipped by.But usually Vers would seek him out before the final daily meal to drag him to whatever tiny restaurant she had discovered during her morning runs.More often than not he would humor her with a smile and a shake of his head.It was his obligation as her mentor, as her friend, or so he told himself at the time.She had no one else.

And neither did he, as the recent days had proved.

Now he doubted if it was ever just an obligation.

He reached into the nightstand and fumbled around inside.Unlike the rest of his apartment, rigidly organized and minimalistic in appearance, the drawer was a chaotic mess of sleeping tabs, discarded wrappers, and other hastily thrown objects.Three ration bars remained.He picked up one, his eyes catching on the rogue object.He unwrapped his meager meal before, almost as an afterthought, he grabbed the metal fragment.

He settled onto the bed, back against the wall and legs stretched out before him.This was undignified, he thought, eating on a bed.He really should at least move to the chair.But he remained where he was, sustenance in one hand, poison in the other.

He finished the tasteless bar and threw the wrapper in the drawer.Then as the last rays of day slipped away, he grasped the shard, tracing the raised lettering with his thumb, letting the jagged edges catch and pull at the grooves on his skin.He dug the point into the pad of his thumb, feeling the sharp bite.A bit more and it would draw blood.Hunger, pain, it was almost a relief to feel anything other than dull, all-encompassing dread.

From the moment he stepped off the wounded craft, his focus had been on regaining some degree of control, shoring up his weak points so much that even the Supremor couldn’t see all he felt.And he had done it.Surprisingly.Heretically.He had deceived a god.Convinced that if the Supremor knew a fraction of all he concealed, he would have died in the simulation, struck down for the worst type of betrayal.And with the dawn he would have to tuck away those remaining pieces of himself once more.Protecting himself for the next inevitable summons.

He looked down at the communicator on his wrist.His pulse thrummed against the device.A silent voice warned.Keep it closed.Lock the door.Bury it.It’ll be harder if you don’t.

Instead he pulled up the display.

Some doors once opened could never be closed.

The communicator chimed as it sought to establish a link.At the last second he pressed a small button activating the secondary encryption.

She answered.In truth he expected this to be a futile exercise, and he felt the painful tug of longing for a different time when things were simple and the lines clear.Back when they were friends.

“Yon-Rogg.” She eyed him suspiciously.“It’s been, well, a little awhile I guess.”

“Vers,” he replied stiffly.

She looked the same, though he supposed she would.It had been less than a week since he had last seen her.Too short a window of time for any dramatic changes to take place.Except his entire life had upended in that time while she had ascended to godhood.

She made a face, but said nothing regarding the moniker before asking with an almost imperceptible smirk, “Did you miss me?”

He let out a short laugh despite himself.She teased as though the universe’s axis hadn’t shifted in the past week.“I delivered your message.”

“How did it go?”

“Well, I’m alive,” he reported with a faint huff, almost a laugh, almost a joke.The reality was more dire so he kept his tone light.

“Was that outcome in doubt?”She asked glancing off to the side, distracted.

“Yes, actually.”

“Oh.” Her head snapped back and her face fell, suddenly serious.“I didn’t...” she trailed off.Anything she might have regretted did neither of them any good.

“It made no difference to the Supremor.”

She stilled, he wondered idly if the connection was cutting out or if she had simply been lost in thought.“How are you doing?”She asked sincerely.Her spare hand moved to support her chin.

Their relationship had always been more open than he ever intended.He spent her final years on Hala fighting it, alternating between commander and mentor and friend.There was supposed to be more time for them to learn how to navigate it together.But with the distance and lies between them anything other than honesty seemed pointless, a wasted effort.

“It’s... strange without you here.”

But that was all he could tell her.All he would tell her.Any further confessions would only hurt more.He might feel the immediate relief and satisfaction like lancing a boil, but then everything he felt would pour out and the flow would never be staunched.The way she had watched him, teased him, pushed him; the open way she had smiled left him with little doubt that his attentions would have been not only accepted, but welcomed.There was supposed to have been time for that as well.But now it was gone.

She hummed her agreement.“Yon-Rogg?”She asked, her voice sounding small.Days ago he had heard the raw hurt in her voice over the communicator as she fumbled for answers about her mysterious past.On Mar-Vell’s ship she had been fire and righteous rage over the deception.But now she sounded miserable, lost and sad.Did she miss him too?

“What is it, Vers?”He tucked the shard in his hand and rested his chin on his fist, unconsciously mirroring her stance.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought-,” he let out a ragged sigh.Somehow this was worse than his summons with the Supreme Intelligence.“I thought there would be more time.That if your memories began to resurface beyond the dreams, I could explain why.”

They sat together in silence.

“Do you think about staying?” She asked.She really meant if he thought about leaving but couldn’t, wouldn’t vocalize that.Had she thought of fleeing before the toxic doubts curled around her like limbs, dragging her away?

“This is my purpose.It’s what I am for.”Yon-Rogg answered dully.He had nothing else, no matter how empty it might seem.

“Serving the Supremor?”

“Serving the Kree,” he offered an alternative, still grappling with how that nuance fit within the larger framework of his shattered life.

“The same Kree who would rather bomb a planet full of millions of people just for one Skrull?”

He didn’t answer.She hadn’t known how he had protested the Accusers involvement before rage and fear had driven him to call upon them himself.

“Yon-Rogg,” she prompted.

“It’s all I have now, Vers.It’s my only option.”

“What if there was another one?”She asked after a long stretch of silence.

“What?”

“You could help,” she whispered in a rush.“You could choose to help _me_.There could be peace.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m still coming to put an end to the Kree expansion, whether the Supreme Intelligence believes it or not.I am coming to end Them.You could help me.”

He said nothing which she took as encouragement.

“Just think about it,” she suggested.

Mute, he nodded his head.Lost in thought and staring off, eyes wide but unseeing, until she disconnected the call.

There in the darkness he leaned back and counted the breaths until sleep finally claimed him.


	3. Blood and Despair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All new names are shamelessly taken from Greek and Roman myths.

He was back in the desert being loaded into that damnable craft.The smell of sweat mingled with blood.Though the sun beat down high above with an unrelenting force, he felt cold.

“You can’t go back empty handed.” Vers stared down at him, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.She handed him a blaster.Wordlessly he took it.

He turned the weapon over in his hands, the weight and grip both foreign and comforting at the same time. It almost looked Terran, but was painted in Kree colors.It reminded him of Vers: two parts that didn’t quite align, but created something glaring and out of place.

“I can’t.”He nodded, agreeing that some small thing must be salvaged.Then he looked up at her, eyes wide and wild, like a child waking from a nightmare.“What am I to do, now?”

“Help me,” she answered with an edge of pleading in her voice.Blood began to leak from her eyes like terrible blue tears.It fell in heavy drops onto the sand, watering the parched earth.It fell in a torrent, flecks splattering onto his hands, staining them.

He wanted to answer, but made no sound as more blood covered his hands.He looked into her eyes before a sharp crack split the air and the craft exploded into a raging ball of blue fire that consumed them both.

Yon-Rogg awoke with a cry on his lips.

The morning broke crisp and clear the following day.Yon-Rogg was already heading out the door on his way to headquarters as the first streaks of sunlight peeked through the skyline.A faint layer of fog clung to the shadowed corners of the wide, open plazas he passed as he made his way to the station that would take him to Starforce.

He tried to force Vers’ offer out of his mind, but like everything else, it was loud.Her presence had been loud; her absence louder still.This offer to help, to turn traitor and become un-Kree had all the subtly of an explosion.

Un-Kree.The worst possible designation.Blood traitor.

And then there was the dream.The history of his people was one of blood.Of blood purity and conquest.Everything he had learned urged him to stand with his blood— his people.But Vers... Vers was also his blood.And she was pressing him to join her, to be the next convert in Mar-Vell’s damned quest against the Collective, against the Supremor.

And here he was, letting the idea spill over him, trickle down his mind and pool in his heart.Was it for her?Was it for him?He had no answer and his unease born of that uncertainty pursued him relentlessly.

He looked toward the transportation hub and halted, considering while he gnawed on the inside of his cheek.Vers ran, he recalled.She ran everywhere, occasionally stopping only when he insisted it had no further purpose or that he was tired from chasing after her.She told him once that it helped clear her mind and organize her thoughts.

He looked towards the paved pathways leading away from the station.Might as well, he thought sardonically, and he broke into a relaxed jog.

* * *

Yon-Rogg fought against shifting his weight as he stood at a relaxed attention.The summons had come earlier than expected.Less than a month after the new operatives had transferred, Starforce was to once again be deployed on missions.

Jan-Nus, Cas-Tor, and Nem-Esis were all blue Kree.Once Korath finished his tour and transferred over to the Accusers, Yon-Rogg would be the only pink Kree on his team, a designation undoubtedly meant to remind him of his place.And how tenuous it was.

But the new operatives were all promising, each in their own way.And Yon-Rogg felt that with time and a confidence that had been lacking in him since C-53, he could mold them into a formidable force.Jan-Nus, though inexperienced, possessed a keen mind for strategy and even keener eyesight.If the young man could overcome his own insecurities, he likely had a career in command waiting for him.This first assignment to special operations put him at the crossroads and he would either flourish or wilt under the pressure.Cas-Tor had all the fire and gumption of Bron-Char and the two had instantly taken to one other, wagering and competing against the other at the range.Nem-Esis reminded Yon-Rogg of Minn-Erva in a number of ways so much so that the similarities in disposition unnerved him.

The following weeks were a long series of practice maneuvers as they worked out how to operate as a team.Yon-Rogg was grateful for the distraction.Often he collapsed into his bed too exhausted after the continuous hours of training to even dream.Vers and her offer constantly intruded into his thoughts, abrading his focus, even as he resolved to put the idea away.But at the very least, he was grateful for the reprieve from his dreams.

His eyes scanned the briefing room absently.Somewhere outside of the room a door slammed, the clap of sound jarring him out of his thoughts and back to his present.He finally relented and permitted his body to shift from left to right, an unconscious tick he thought he had long since banished.He was there to receive orders.Orders relayed by his superiors, not directly from the Supreme Intelligence.

It had happened before, of course, the Supremor had limits like every other finite being in the universe.But it had been a long time since Yon-Rogg and his objectives were considered beneath Their notice.Nor was it unheard of for a superior officer to receive the mission objectives and blessing from the Supremor for the tasks of subordinates, but for him and for his position it was unusual.The change would have been a slight were he not so caught up in the relief at not having to once again face an unnerving Vers with unnatural green eyes and white hair.

An officer strode in and he straightened his posture incrementally.With a bored perusal of the tablet, the officer began the mission briefing.

After years of the constant ebb and flow of incursions during the war with the Nova Empire, there had finally been rumors around the military hierarchy that peace was achievable, even being negotiated.But then all talks of ending the ongoing conflict seemed to evaporate in an instant.

The initial wave of strikes had begun after his audience with the Supreme Intelligence.The very next day, in fact.Yon-Rogg had heard the rumors, even seen a few of the after-action reports.But with his own troubles and training three new members of his squad, he had failed to connect the two events.Until now.

Was this his fault?Had he, in his frustration with himself and a defensive need to rail against his very failures caused this renewal of hostilities by relaying the message?He chastised himself, for that way lay an even greater vanity than he had suffered before his inglorious defeat.But he still felt responsible.

This was as far from Vers’ demand that Supremor cease Their wars as imaginable, and incredibly, arrogantly, he felt the full weight of responsibility for this.He may not have struck the match, but he held it blazing against the kindling.He should have remained silent and said nothing of Vers’ threat.

The mission he received was simple enough: a series of targets on a border world of the Nova Empire.The world was rural: an agrarian world lacking in much other than rich soil and temperate weather.A few scattered colonies served as the footholds in the new world, but they were too small and underdeveloped to provide large-scale exports to the rest of the empire.In short, the assigned targets possessed no apparent military or tactical value.

Then he did something he had rarely done before.He questioned.Not aloud, of course.He rather liked living and the intervening weeks since his interview with the Supremor had only fixed this reality firmly in his mind, no matter how frequently his thoughts drifted to the self-destructive.But as the officer detailed the silos to be destroyed, the irrigation to be tampered with, and the local civilian leader— not even a politician— to be eliminated, Yon-Rogg internally questioned the objectives rather than accepting them on some blind faith of their rightness.

This was wrong a rebellious thought protested.Even if there was something unknown, something unsaid.By the Collective, even if there were Skrulls hiding in every one of the prefabricated colony housing on this small backwater, the wrongness stained every directive.Nothing could justify what he was about to do.And yet he felt helpless to do anything to prevent it.

While the rest of his team disabled mechanical systems and destroyed supplies, his task would be eliminating the local leader.There would be no distant neutralizing of a target by Jan-Nus from a sniper nest kilometers away.No impersonal objective completed where separation could obscure the truth of what this was.It was murder.And it was a test to put Yon-Rogg, who as a rule hated excessive violence or bloodshed, in the thick of it.Where was the honor in this?Where was the nobility of the Kree who defended those too weak to look after themselves?This was brutal and lacking in reason.

It was a trial to see if he would succeed.And he feared he was damned to fail regardless of what he did.

Yon-Rogg left the briefing feeling colder than he ever remembered feeling before.Even in the false chill of his dreams had there never been this frigid piercing that struck him to his bones.Icy dread unfurled like the first frost of winter, enveloping all of him.He moved stiffly, utterly numb.

One... two... three... he counted softly to quell the mounting hysteria, freezing it out before it could spread.

His team was scheduled to leave that very day.If Korath, Att-Lass, or Bron-Char noticed how his voice wavered as he relayed objectives, they wisely kept it to themselves.

They boarded the _Aerion_ , identical to the _Helion_ in all ways except the most important— being _his_.Technically the ship belonged to Starforce, but the _Helion_ had felt like his.Like everything else in his life, this new vessel was an imposter.The team loaded up weapons and explosives, and then departed, shooting up like a star into the night.

He counted the entire way to Demeter VII.

Twenty hours after he stood taut and anxious in a briefing room, he picked his way through the field of Xandarian rye.The blades of grass whispered against his form as he crept through the rows of crops.The landscape was lit only by the dim light of the distant twin moons.It was late.Dark shadows cast the modular buildings in stark relief against the velvet sky, purple and endless.The few buildings strewn across the settlement were all dark windows and set far apart from one another.If luck was on his side, the target would simply never wake from his dreams.

But luck was nowhere to be found.

The man, the target, was old but still much younger than Yon-Rogg expected him to be with his status of esteemed elder.He couldn’t delude himself with the thought that the man would only survive a season or two more if he wasn’t there to end the man’s life.This was a man barely out of his prime with many more years ahead of him.Years that were now about to be cut short and for no other reason than Yon-Rogg lacked the courage to openly defy orders.

Senseless orders from the Supremor.Orders that gained nothing other to ensure Yon-Rogg’s servitude.And he felt the bitter hatred of someone without hope or options beginning to simmer within him.

Stealth was not his area of expertise.Consequently the man woke with a start.All too quickly reality pushed away the fog of sleep that clung to him like a shroud.The man’s eyes grew wide with fright.

“Please,” the target begged.

Yon-Rogg hated it.This was hard enough as it was, the pointless death and destruction.But they both had their part to play and nothing either of them could say would change it.They were both irrevocably trapped in their roles.

“I _can’t_ ,” Yon-Rogg protested weakly as he took aim.

At least he made it quick, as relatively painless as death could be.He tried to console himself with this fact, but like everything else his life had become, even that rang false.

Outside of the small residence he stared up at the night sky.The planet was smaller than Hala, it’s curvature pronounced at the horizon.The sky felt closer as a result, not a distant thing hanging overhead.It felt as though the very heavens pressed down against him, heavy with the weight of his crimes.The stars glittered like a distant, unreachable dreams and Yon-Rogg stared up at them and wished more than he had ever wished for anything that he could be someone else.With an anguished groan, he turned back in the direction of the _Aerion_.

He returned to Hala to faint praise for his team’s first successful mission.The first of many his superiors said with cheer.Even Korath looked at him with something other than raw scorn.

But none of it mattered.Night after night while he slept, Vers hoisted him into the damaged drop ship, only now she had help wearing the face of the very man he killed.

He began running regularly at dawn and again at dusk, desperate that the excess physical activity would clear his mind and calm his dreams.It didn’t.Vers’ words and her offer only rang louder when his pulse quickened and his breath escaped loud, labored draws.

His hatred had begun to boil over.

A week after returning from the mission, he had made up his mind.

* * *

He rolled the broken metal between his fingers in one hand, the habit now well formed and familiar.He dug the tip into the pad of his thumb so frequently a slight callus had begun to form.The torn metal was the most comforting thing in his life and he used the ritual of passing it between his fingers to soothe his nerves.

The shade was drawn.The lights were out.He had combed through the room for bugs or other small transmitters that might pick up on a conversation.None were found, and he was unsure if that surprised him or not.The Yon-Rogg from two months ago would have no reason to be monitored nor to care if he were.But now he had spent days imagining this treason and it made him jumpy enough to skirt into paranoia.

No matter how extreme, he felt a rush of dread that these weren’t enough precautions, that the minute he initiated the connection, They would know and he would be dragged to the Supreme Intelligence.

Yon-Rogg switched on the small device.After a crackling start, the room was washed in a constant static buzz.The noise wouldn’t protect against the most sensitive of monitoring devices, but he thought—he hoped— that Kree Intelligence couldn’t allocate those resources as stretched thin as they were fighting wars on multiple fronts and their ongoing internal monitoring against Skrulls.His stomach clenched with the knowledge of what he was about to do, and what he was committing to become.

It couldn’t possibly be worse than what he had already done.

Vers answered swiftly.

“I’m ready.I’ll help,” he said without preamble.

That got her attention.“What happened?Are you okay?”

It should have cheered him to know that she still cared, to hear it expressed in the edge in her voice and the sharp look in her eyes.Instead it only served to remind him of how very unworthy of it he was.Of how much he had to atone for.

“You’ll hear soon enough, I’m sure.”

She nodded, offering what limited understanding she could though it was colored with the knowledge that whatever had brought him to this point, he would not share it. It was another thing standing between the easy camaraderie they had once shared. One more secret not to share. At least not now.Maybe not ever.

“Hold on,” she instructed, then turned to speak to someone beyond the field of view before returning. “At the start of the next week, go to your old gym, that we used to train at.”

He remembered.Since returning from C-53 he had not been able to even bother going back to a place he had visited most of his adult life.It felt wrong to return there.

“Go each morning.Someone will ask you a question.When they ask a third time, say yes.”

He was confused but nodded all the same.A test, or an initiation of sorts.Something to gauge his level of commitment, but nothing too involved in case he was caught.If she had spies there, she likely already knew he had not been there once since...

There was so much more he wanted to say, so much more to confess.But there wasn’t time for that.During his first contact with her, he had been frayed and raw with emotion.Disappointing, but excusable if intercepted.But this was calculated betrayal.This was treason and there was no coming back from it.The less extraneous words said, the better.

“Don’t die,” she commanded as the transmission ended.

He sat alone in the dark and the quiet for a long while.The dread that had crushed him like a weight on his chest felt.... lighter.He took a deep, even breath and felt no compulsion to count.

That night he fell into a blissfully dreamless sleep.


	4. A Cell of Skrulls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear eventually this will get less angsty, but this story’s protagonist has got some personal growth he needs to do.

Yon-Rogg stood at the transit station practically bouncing on the soles of his feet as he waited for the tram.Every cell felt on edge with anticipation.It was the third day of the new week.The previous two days another Kree had asked him to spar.Each time he had declined.

Today all that would change, though he knew not into what.His old life had fallen away piece by piece.But now it would shift into something new and he would take the first step to wake from this endless nightmare.To be something better than the weapon they had turned him into.

By the Collective, was this what Vers had felt like?Like she was nothing more than an object to be wielded by someone else?To have no control over one’s own life and actions?And hadn’t he at a point thought of her simply as a weapon?The notion left him shaken.He felt nauseated as the realization clawed at his throat.It didn’t matter if it had been years since he had thought of her in such limiting, depersonalized terms.Nor did it matter that he had long since felt more for her than anyone else.He committed the same unforgivable crime, the very thing the Supreme Intelligence had done to him.

Suddenly the smells of the city and the pulsing crush of other Kree seemed too rank, too close.He choked down a gagging sensation.He had done the same thing to her.She must hate the very sight of him.

He steeled himself, pushing back against the force of his shame.This was his chance and he would not waste it, he vowed silently.He would make amends and turn away from the path the Supremor would have the Kree be dragged down.With luck, he would reclaim more of himself along the way.To be how he had once thought himself: loyal, honorable.

Ironic that throwing his lot in with Vers and her band of Skrulls was the path towards honor.

He made his way through the main doors of the gym, heading towards the sparring mats.The man wasn’t there.Yon-Rogg glanced in the other rooms.He was nowhere to be found.

Confused and dejected, Yon-Rogg made his way to the weight room and began a series of reps channeling his frustration into the task.Where was the Kree from the previous two days?He was certain that was who was supposed to present his daily question before revealing his next task.

What if he was wrong?What if Vers and her ilk had changed her mind about him?He didn’t think there was anything more to this than simply showing up each day.But what if he had been mistaken?What if there was some unmentioned test he didn’t even know about and he had been found wanting?Like all the silent challenges he once had laid at her feet without even telling her about...

He moved to sit on a bench, resisting the urge to set his head in his hands and tear at his damp hair.He had failed somehow and his punishment would be returning to long line of hopeless days stretching before him where he would fight and kill and slowly wither away inside.

It was no worse than he deserved, but he had allowed himself to hope.Its sudden absence leaving a hollow place within him.

“Would you like a fresh towel?” A child asked as they approached. A single white towel was in their hands.

Yon-Rogg blinked.Then confusion melted away as comprehension dawned.The child.This same child who asked each day if he would prefer a fresh towel.He hadn’t consciously meant to reject the offer, the refusal came naturally out of his own desire for independence and solitude.

“Yes, thank you.” Yon-Rogg took the cloth from the child’s outstretched hand. The child hurried away.

A middle-aged Kree stood before him where the child had stood a breath before. He had moved silently and quickly and Yon-Rogg had not noticed him anywhere in the near vicinity.

This had to be it.

“Come with me, commander.”He pointed towards a narrow corridor.

Wordlessly, Yon-Rogg set the proffered towel aside and followed the man.

He was lead out the rear exit of the building, through alleyways, and around corners to a nondescript building tucked away and forgotten.The man pressed his hand against the keypad to open a the exterior door.Inside was a vestibule with a second door which revealed a slat that slid open to frame pair of squinting eyes.

“This him, eh?”A gruff voice asked.

The stranger who had brought him from the gym grunted out that yes, he had brought the commander.

The sound of latches and locks scraping against metal screamed out before the heavy door swung open.Yon-Rogg glanced back at the first man who gestured with a wave that he should enter into the darkened room.He followed, passing through the second door and was lead on again across a room of shadows through a third.He was in the heart of the structure.As deep as he could go.

The door slammed behind him and he hoped in the dim light that his slight flinch at the sound went unnoticed. A tall Kree stood before him, glowering and silent. Yon-Rogg glanced around as more gathered, feeling ill at ease.

They were all Skrulls.Except for him and the man before him, who he was rapidly beginning to suspect was also a Skrull. If so, he was surrounded. All loyalists to their people.Except for him.All victims of the Kree expansion.Except for him. They could kill him and no one would ever know.They could replace him and keep him chained like an animal as they took what little was still his.

“You can call me Drov-Kree,” the Kree in front of him said. Then his face began to shimmer in a wave of purple and transform.Pointed ears sprung from rounded ones and blue skin melted into green.In the Kree’s place was a Skrull.He shouldn’t have been surprised—he suspected as much—but he still felt the skin on his neck tense and hairs stand.

Despite his unease, Yon-Rogg laughed aloud, not even trying to stifle his amusement.

It wasn’t an unheard of surname, though it was increasingly rare.Linguists had theorized that it dated all the way back to the first great Kree expansion when they had intermixed with other species.The hybrids whose original culture forwent family names assumed the classical naming style and adopted ‘Kree’ as a way of ingratiating themselves with the pure blooded Kree who looked down on the new interlopers.But the idea of a blue Kree hanging onto that as a last name over a more established one was utterly ridiculous.

“You really should be pink if you’re going to use that surname,” he explained.

“Noted.”The man’s frown deepened.

“Sounds like he’s already proving useful,” a dry, familiar voice broke in.

On the far side of the room a table projection had been activated and there bathed in blue light was Vers.He began walking towards the table as though caught in a gravitational field.With the projection, it appeared as though her head and torso floated life-sized above the surface.It was almost like she was there rather than the previous times he had seen her, shrunk and small in a projection held between his fingers.

He had missed her presence.

“Drovk, give us the room,” she instructed.

He heard a scattering of protests as the Skrulls clustered by the door, like unruly children displaying their displeasure through slowed actions.The man he had offended before, Drovk apparently, herded them out and shut the door behind him.

“Is this safe?”Yon-Rogg cast an apprehensive glance around the room, checking over his shoulder if there was still a rogue Skrull lingering.

“You mean are you going to get caught in a Skrull safe house or will you be strung up by the Skrulls?No, probably not to either.They’ve taken a lot of measures to avoid detection.But don’t be stupid and take any unnecessary risks.”

There was something approaching humor in all this.Vers was lecturing him on caution.

“Vers—” he began only to be cut off.

“No.No more of that,” her voice took on a metallic edge.“I’m Carol and you have to start calling me that.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off.

“I don’t care how many times you have to practice it in your head, but there’s no Vers and there never was.”

That stung.Dismantling her identity had never been intentional.He had given her what parts of her name he could.But he understood her need for her two halves to be separate.It was her version of counting. It still hurt to hear her so adamantly cast it all aside though.Why did she want his help if everything about her past with the Kree was so repugnant to her?

“So why are you willing to take this chance on me, _Carol_?”He emphasized her name.This new name he forced his mind to associate with her familiar face.It was uncomfortable and made him feel like she was more of a stranger to him than ever.Perhaps she was. But he could adjust. He felt like a stranger to himself most days. What was one more?

“Well, we heard about Demeter VII.Thanks for the heads up on that.And apparently you looked like a wreck after.”

“You had me followed,” he realized, then he blanched at that.He thought he had been so very careful.How long ago had she sent someone to follow him?How would he even know when his tracker could change their face at will.And had the Supremor also arranged for someone to tail him?Both prospects were chilling.

“You’ve been followed from the moment you got back to Hala,” she supplied with a mild shrug.

His face must of been etched with betrayal, as hypocritical as the sentiment was, because Carol bristled and her eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms.

“Look, I might have trusted you once,” she spat before softening her tone.“I might be willing to let you prove I can trust you again. But I’m not going to blindly trust you with their lives at this point.There’s too much at stake.”

Once she had more than trusted him, he thought wryly, but she would hardly respond warmly were he to reminisce.

“I suppose that’s fair,” he agreed with a nod.“So what happens now?”

“Now Drovk, or _Drov-Kree_ apparently when he’s wearing that face,” she added with a laugh, “will serve as your primary contact.Whatever you need goes through him.He’s got the best knack for faces and can arrange where to meet you around Hala.”

“I won’t be coordinating with you?”

“You miss me that much?”One side of her mouth curled up.But she shook her head.“We can’t risk our encryption by sending signals off world too frequently.”

So he couldn’t rely on regular contact with her to serve as some link with his old life, he thought.And while this conversation alone worked as a balm against his battered psyche, he would be—at least for the foreseeable future—on his own.

“Surely you have some schedule for communications?”

She smirked.“Half of the Kree agencies have the same reporting deadlines.No one is monitoring data streams when most of the municipalities are sending huge data packets back and forth between every province.”

His look of surprised amused her and she chuckled.

“Be nice to Drovk and maybe he’ll clue you in on the schedule.He’s a bit of a grump, but he has to be.It’s dangerous for any Skrull to be on Hala.”

A truth he knew all too well.

“And what will I be doing?”

“Mostly acting as though nothing has changed.”He released a puff of amusement at that.How little she knew.“We’re going to need you to investigate certain targets for us, look into places we can’t get a Skrull to, that sort of thing.But we’ll probably work up to that.”

Yon-Rogg had the faint sensation that there was something she wasn’t telling him and the unspoken thing’s presence rested heavy between them.

“I won’t murder for you,” he said as though bracing for an arguement.

Her eyes narrowed and she looked positively incandescent.Her voice was barely a whisper of tightly controlled indignation.“How can you compare me to _Them_?”

He felt abashed for the comparison, but refused to show it.He would not back down from this even if they were going to be fighting on the same side.“It needs to be said.I’ll help, but I won’t be your assassin.And I won’t kill unless I have no choice.”

If he did end up having to kill someone, it would likely be because his cover was blown and he was in a mad dash to avoid capture.

“Fine,” she said.“But murder is not part of my plan, and I would never ask you to...”

She trailed off and the silence hung.

He nodded.Alright.She watched him as he stepped closer to the projection, the image was so clear he could see her eyes darting back and forth between his.It felt like they were almost in the same room.Almost close enough to touch, as though there weren’t galaxies between them.Whatever she was looking for, she must have found because the answering bob of her head echoed his.

“We’re looking at the systems that support the Supremor’s servers,” Carol said.“That’s our focus.When I return, because I will,” she added with firm conviction, “it’s going to be a mess.We’re not entirely sure how we’re going to manage.But we are trying to minimize any casualties.Our issue is the Supreme Intelligence, not the Kree.”

“And what if the Kree become the problem once the Supremor is dealt with?” he asked.

“On problem at a time, Yon-Rogg,” she said lightly.

“What exactly are you looking for?”

She shrugged.“Power substations, heat pumps, coolant lines, data hubs, really anything that could be supporting the Supreme Intelligence.”

She causally mentioned surveillance on some of the most closely guarded locations in the entire empire. Lost ruins full of treasure would be easier to uncover.

He fixed her with a look.“You realize you’re looking for information on some of the most classified intelligence within the empire?”

“Good thing we have someone on the inside,” she smirked at him.

“Good thing he’s a bit more subtle than you would be.”

Carol rolled her eyes.

“And then what?After you know what tendrils hold the Supremor up, you just eliminate them?You and I both know those locations will be heavily protected.”

“First we find them, but we’re working on it.We cut the arms and leave the body spinning in the wind.Then I’m going to walk into that temple and kill the Supremor and free the Kree.”

He gasped, whether from shock or fear or pride at her gall he was uncertain.Until she said the words, he still imagined some sort of orbital strike.She was going to commune with It again, he realized with horror.But this time, the Supreme Intelligence would never let her go.

“But you could die.”

“Better one life than billions trapped as slaves to the Supreme Intelligence.Besides,” she added with a toss of her hair, “I’ve had pretty good odds so far.”

Unease still clawed at him.Her scheme was scattered and lacking in details, but there was still much to plan before they would be anywhere approaching prepared.It could even be years.Besides, if there was one thing he knew how to do, it was protecting Vers’ flank and keeping her alive.He could manage to do the same with Carol.Probably.

“Dumb luck, you mean,” he teased.Warmth spread through him when she grinned in response.

It was almost as things used to be.Separation and circumstance hadn’t dimmed his feelings towards her.If anything, they intensified in her absence.Carol took everything that was once Vers along with the flame that had burned for her and it roared into a wildfire.

“Look,” she said, abruptly shifting back to business, “if this is going to be too much for you, if you can’t do it you have to tell me now.Once you’re in this, that’s it.You’re committed.”

She was offering him one last out, he realized.One last chance to turn his back on all of this and return to what he had once been.But he had been awake too long.Now there was no going back to sleep.

“I’m with you V— Carol.”

To the end, he thought, but could not say.

She smiled.It was a soft, quiet thing.Not a wide grin or a lopsided smirk, but faint and delicate.

“I’m glad.”

Later as Drovk gave him a series of coordinates and objectives and pressed a smooth, gray object into his hand, the memory of that small, faint smile on her lips stayed with him.


	5. The Time Between

There was a secondary benefit to his runs aside from keeping his warring thoughts at bay.The habit had begun early enough before his defection that it escaped anyone’s notice than he never kept to the same routes.Had this habit of solitary jogging begun before Torfa, his own attitude would have demanded specific and deliberate routes throughout the city.But his seemingly random routes now could be attributed to nothing more than another eccentricity brought on after his failure on C-53.Vers never kept to an ascribed route when she crisscrossed Hala on her runs; he assumed whoever might be watching him from the shadows would expect the same erratic behavior from him now that she was gone.

Did the Supremor suspect he would tread down the same defiant path toward insurrection?He shook his head, answering his own thoughts.No, if treason was suspected he never would have left the simulation alive.There was no reason for Them or anyone to suspect what he was about.

Yon-Rogg spied a darkened corner near a narrow backstreet.He then bent down as if to check his shoe for a rock and glanced surreptitiously around.Convinced he had not been followed, he darted into the alley.

The metal grate was tucked away between the mechanics exhausts of two buildings.The fastenings that secured the slotted cover in place had corroded over the years.Typical.A utility tunnel that connected to some of the most important facilities in Hala that could be accessed through an old, rusty hatch.He glanced around, verifying what he had noticed the previous two times he just happened to need to catch his breath in this particular alley: no cameras.With a sharp tug the grate groaned free.

He dropped into the yawning, darkened pit.Ankle deep sludge cushioned his fall.The air was stale and rancid.Turning on a light on his communicator, he grimaced as he looked at his feet.Algae and mud and other wet matter which he preferred not to identify mixed in a thick soup.

Drovk had better appreciate this, he thought with a wry smile.He wouldn’t, of course, Yon-Rogg knew.Mild discomfort was simply one more thing for the new recruit to endure.Carol might, if she had any idea what he had been doing these past weeks.

He pulled the small object out of his jacket.When collapsed it appeared as a small, perfectly smooth metallic pebble, plain aside from several lines that ran along the sides.The nanotechnology it used resulted in a heavier weight than its size would suggest.

When questioned, Drovk wouldn’t tell him where it came from, or what civilization’s technology had been coopted as the basis for this tool.Though it could interface with other techs it was utterly alien and completely unfamiliar to him.It was not based on crystalline technology like the Skrulls, and while clearly some form of nanotechnology, its behavior was less fluid than that of the Kree nanites.If Kree technology appeared a marriage of blood and bone forced into fluid or angled shapes, this technology presented more like stone, it’s appearance even, yet hard and unyielding until it crumbled into a new form.As far as Yon-Rogg could tell, it only had three forms: _open_ , _close_ , and _see_.While in his hand, it was closed.Pebble was an apt name for the device and Yon-Rogg was never without it since Drovk had pressed it into his palm nearly a month ago.

He dragged his nail along on one side until it felt the catch of a tiny ridge.He pressed down on the area and the device began to emit a faint hum as it grew and spread, taking the shape of a visor.Seeing, or seeking as Drovk had called it, though the distinction mattered little to Yon-Rogg.He slipped the band over his eyes.

His vision was suddenly awash with a blue light as object’s cameras adjusted to the dark surroundings.The light from his communicator winked out.Slowly he began making his way through the muck mapping a new stretch of tunnels, noting how the tunnels would branch out into other routes to be explored in the future and where vents and access hatches were located.

With this new access point, he was able to map utility tunnels of entire districts.Occasionally a locked gate obstructed his path.Most were rusted shut, but some were already destroyed.Yon-Rogg suspected a criminal element made use of the tunnels to move goods throughout the city.All the better.Any damage he did would be associated with greed or vice rather than treason.The first two were accepted detractions of civilized society, but the last would raise an alarm.

Yon-Rogg rubbed his temple, unused to the weight of the visor.He checked the device was recording.He was sure to have a headache later once he was alone and the stress and tension abated. 

* * *

“We grow tired of this form, Yon-Rogg.”The Supreme Intelligence stood before him, and once again It wore the face of Vers.

Vers, he could only think of her by that name in the simulation.Later he would sort through what was Vers and what was Carol.But the Supremor could never masquerade as Carol, They could only appear as Vers, the symbol of his life from before.To think of Carol while he communed with the Intelligence was to court disaster.Too many doors could be nudged open.

“I am sorry, Your Eminence.”

“Regardless,” They said, crossing in a wide circle around him, a hunter circling prey, “you’ve performed well during your recent assignments.Almost as if that embarrassment on C-53 never happened.”

At this point the Supremor would expect some sign of shame, some reaction to once again being reminded of his failures.He played his role.He bowed his head.

“In time your team will be entrusted with more to bring Nova to their knees and bring victory to the Kree.”

“It is my honor to serve.”Yon-Rogg kept his head down.

“It is the honor of every Kree to serve the Collective.”

He counted the tiles covering the simulated floor.He arrived at seven and felt fingers under his chin, forcing his eyes to meet the eerie green of the Supremor.

“Train your team well and soon We will give you another chance to strike at the Nova Empire,” the Supreme Intelligence kept Their fingers under his chin, applying pressure and tilting his face higher.

“For the good of all Kree,” he mumbled as the simulation dissolved around him.

He collapsed onto the ground, bracing his weight on shaking arms.As he released a ragged sob, a broken thought tumbled through his mind.Seeing the Supreme Intelligence in any form, but especially with her face, was becoming harder.

* * *

“Have you decided how far you’re going to go with this?” Drovk asked him.

“What are you talking about?”Yon-Rogg ignored his pointed gaze, instead focusing on withdrawing the data crystal from within the pebble. _Open_ he commanded silently, fumbling for the correct groove.

“I mean, how long are you going to try to maintain this cover or are you actually planning on joining the fight?”

Yon-Rogg finally found the catch and the device spit out the crystal.He set the purple gem on the nearby table.“It’s not as though you actually have me doing anything at this point.”His tone was measured, but annoyance pierced his words.“Routine scouting of abandoned water causeways is hardly all someone with my background could be doing.”

Drovk picked up the crystal, pinching the object between his fingers.“What do you think imagine Hala will look like without the Supreme Intelligence?And do you think there will be a place for you here when that happens?”

Yon-Rogg’s eyes darted over to the Skrull.“Are you suggesting I abandon my home?”Yon-Rogg asked as though struck by an insult, as though he hadn’t considered the same thing night after night.In the quiet moments before succumbing to exhaustion he had wondered if the best course of action wouldn’t be to flee as Carol had done.Still, to hear the suggestion come from another was an affront.

“I’m saying, you’re a revolutionary conspiring with your ancient enemy to kill your god.”

“A god could hardly be overpowered as easily as Carol managed,” he retorted, then chastised himself for lingering on theological matters.Despite his previously held devotion to the Supremor, he never had the propensity for blind faith that others seemed to possess.Even so, the command, the adulation, the pride—those things were tightly wound up in an impossible knot built up over years.All those thoughts and feelings unraveled somewhere between C-53 and Demeter VII.Even now he was uncomfortable examining the matter of the Supremor’s supposed divinity too closely.A part of him still longed for the simplicity of it all, the way things were back then.That same part mourned the loss of belief, the loss of self...

It was best to tuck it all away.

“Regardless,” Drovk said, “those types like you are rarely able to live in their new world unless they’re the ones holding power themselves.Is that what you’re angling for?To be the next leader of the Kree?”

“N-no,” his sputtered refusal was immediate and emphatic.

Drovk cast him a sidelong glance.“Are you sure?They’ll need someone like you.Someone who can adapt to change and shepherd them into a new life where they don’t exterminate their enemies.Someone who sees your Supreme Intelligence for what it is.”

“And what is that?”

“A computer with a faulty code.”

He could see with perfect clarity the horrified reaction a younger version of himself would wear at such heretical words.But he was so far removed from that person as to be as distinct from him as Carol was from Vers.He doubted someone currently committing a more egregious treason than Mar-Vell ever dreamt of would even be welcomed on Hala once this was over.And even if they were, the idea was unthinkable.“I have no interest in politics.”

“Pity,” Drovk said in a tone that could just as easily contradict his words.

Yon-Rogg turned to leave, then looked back at Drovk.“Isn’t there something else I could be doing?”

“Such as?”

He shook his head, at a loss to articulate exactly what he meant.“Something more.”

Drovk responded with words that were disinterested, but with a tone that sounded tinged with regret.

* * *

Yon-Rogg heard voices as he approached the communications room.Sharp words rang out, signaling a heated debate.He hesitated just outside of the open doorway, then decided to remain there rather than pass into the room.

“Well then, I don’t know how we’re going to proceed if you keep fighting us on this,” Talos’ voice carried across from the holo projection’s speaker.“We’ve got years ahead of us at this rate.My people can’t last that long.”

“He stays where he is,” Carol hissed a warning.

Presumably this was about him.He had assumed from Drovk’s reaction to his repeated requests for more than the limited tasks of scouting sewers and utility tunnels was rooted in mistrust of him. After several attempts, he stopped asking.

“We could sim him,” Drovk offered after a beat.

“No,” Carol lashed at him, “you’re not doing that again.You never should have done it in the first place.”

 _Again_.Meaning Drovk, or perhaps one of the others, had simmed him before.He had wondered when would they finally trust him. _If_ they would finally trust him.He assumed he still had more to prove to Carol and Talos before more would be asked of him.But apparently that was one more thing he had gotten wrong.They already knew everything, or at least everything recent, which was more than enough.

“I did what I had to do, Carol,” Drovk insisted.

The scene sharpened before him: Drovk had simmed him and Carol was still fuming about it.Had he paraded around as a simulacrum wearing his face for reconnaissance or simply to gain access to his recent memories?Yon-Rogg wondered absently when the Skrull might have done it while he waited for the sting of ire and betrayal that didn’t come.He found himself more surprised by its absence. It was odd he lacked a reaction aside from curiosity. He should have been furious, tightly controlled rage simmering beneath a placid face.

But he couldn’t fault Drovk’s caution.He had been an unknown quantity: Carol’s former commander suddenly offering assistance.In their place, he would have shared their suspicions.And still Yon-Rogg couldn’t bring himself to feel angry about the invasion.He felt... relieved.

He had never been one for dwelling on emotions.Most days he could set them aside and close the door.But the longer he remained the lone Kree on Hala, the more days passed where he felt as if he were brittle kindling just ready ignite.All this shame and fear and now at least one person understood fully what the days following Demeter VII were like and knew the misery he had carried with him since Torfa.And in that instant, he realized the Skrull would bear that knowledge in silence, guarding Yon-Rogg’s shame even from his own kind.

He couldn’t hate Drovk for this either.Though the Skrull’s insistence on the necessity of the act only seemed to fuel Carol’s fury.

“No, you didn’t have to.We already had him monitored,” she pointed out.

“Not good enough when it comes to Starforce,” Talos said.

“You wanted us to bring him here with just your word?”Drovk added.

“It wasn’t like that,” her voice dropped low.

“You keep protecting him,” Drovk said in his typically frustrated voice. “From us, from the work, from all of it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Carol scoffed.

“You are, Carol,” Talos’ voice was even but firm.

“He asked to do more weeks ago, and he’s given us good intelligence so far,” Drovk said pointedly.“At this point I trust him as much as I would ever be willing to trust a born Kree.Why are we wasting him scouting tunnels when any of our operatives can manage that?”

“It’s important that—” she stammered.

“You said you could handle this,” Talos interrupted her.Frustration was building with each word.

Carol’s voice was immediate and defensive.“I can.I am.Handling this, I mean.”

Talos let out a weary sigh of mild disagreement.“We need eyes in that building, and recent memories won’t be enough for one of us walking in there.We need him to do this.”

“What good is even having a—what did you call it—a mole in Starforce if you won’t even let me use him?” Drovk exclaimed with a huff.

The silence stretched on an uncomfortably long time during their standoff.

“Are you afraid he might have to kill someone?” Talos’ voice was gentle, almost paternal.

“I don’t want to ask him to be the very thing he’s turning from,” she answered slowly.

“You’re not asking him to murder just to prove you can.”Yon-Rogg was grateful to the Skrull general for voicing what he could not as he remained hidden by the doorway.

“He’s a soldier,” Drovk added, an uncharacteristic tenderness to his usually gruff voice.“He knows what the stakes are.He knows that a mission can go bad.But this was his decision.”

“And what if he dies because of me?What if I’m just using him like a weapon or a tool with no thought to his own life?Because then I’m no better than the Supremor.So, what then?”Her voice was even, lacking the usual rise and fall.He knew that tone, that stillness that concealed the tempest within.She used that voice when she was barely holding her feelings in check.

When she had loaded him into the damaged drop ship and sent him whirling back to Hala, he had been so certain she realized he could die as a result and had judged that an acceptable risk.It never occurred to him that she only expected him to be disgraced.But with the knowledge death had been a very real option that she had been blind to, she now struggled to justify throwing him in the path of further danger.

A sudden bloom of warmth spread across him.He understood wanting to protect someone despite knowing how capable they were.He had felt it himself with her.He understood the panic that could strangle when someone cared for was behind enemy lines and information was limited.He had felt it too.

Were he a braver man, he would have chosen that moment to announce his presence.He would have entered the room and told Carol he would be fine and demanded a greater share in the danger and responsibility.But for all their similarities, he could not bring himself to openly defy her wishes despite how often Vers had done that very thing with him.Nor would he force her to further expose her fears beyond what her two advisors had already offered up for scrutiny.She didn’t need to know he had heard that painfully calm voice speaking her fears to life.

Instead he remained concealed in the shadows, listening as their conversation drifted away from her former commander and onto other matters.The link was severed and several Skrulls began filtering out of the room.

Drovk seemed unsurprised to find Yon-Rogg lingering by the entrance.“Figured I’d find you here,” he grumbled.

Yon-Rogg gave no reply.

“So,” he said with a huff, “let’s take a look at these new maps you’ve brought.”

Late that night Yon-Rogg sat on his bed, staring out the window at the skyline illuminated by a scattering of lights.He passed the torn tag back and forth between his palms.

Against his better judgement, he pulled up his comm.If he could steer the conversation away from their more clandestine activities, a low-resolution comms call should slip through the communication hubs unnoticed.It was still dangerous, incredibly so.But her even voice had haunted him, echoing in his mind. Her voice sounded like a string drawn taut.He needed to assure her all was well before the meager control snapped.It was worth the risk to ensure her wellbeing.

“A social call?Really?”Carol’s grin was small and her tone bemused.

He shrugged and then answered in a dry voice, “I wouldn’t have any other reason for speaking with you.”

They both reacted to that.A small quirk of a mouth and an answering twitch of eyebrows.Too small for anyone else to notice should they intercept the transmission.If observed by a stranger, it might even be called a wince.

“You’re going to get in trouble,” she mused with a musical lilt to her voice.But whether she meant he would be in trouble with the Kree or the Skrulls if anyone learned about this, she left unsaid.

Regardless, she knew exactly what he was doing.And if Carol’s amused expression was anything to go by, she reveled in the knowledge that her influence had been so thoroughly corrupting despite the risk.Vers had always taken great pleasure whenever Yon-Rogg would set aside the measured and cautious traits that he had tried so hard to cultivate and behaved recklessly.Of course Carol would delight in the same.

“I think I’ll be okay.”

She was quiet.

“Carol,” his caressed her new name.He had become used to it, and he held onto the small comfort to know Carol was out there worrying about him.“I’m going to be fine.”He hoped she knew what he meant, what was unsaid.

“Are you?”She sounded unsure, words ringed by skepticism and fear.

“Yes,” he said.“I know _exactly_ what I’m doing.Don’t doubt it.”

“Promise?” she teased.

He was promising more than his safety.

“Of course,” he vowed.“Always.”

He was promising to come back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just for reference, at this chapter’s close we are roughly 12 weeks post-movie, give or take a week.


	6. Remembrance

Yon-Rogg gazed out the _Aerion’s_ view screen.The ship hovered in orbit above the world of stone and dust.Desert storms had eroded the once sharp mountains, jagged teeth worn down by centuries into soft curves of stone.But now the Accuser ships rained their bombs upon An’anke, cracking open the ancient rocks in an unceasing barrage.Somewhere beneath that storm of sand and fire was the Nova Corps’ facility.

“Alright, let’s review.”Yon-Rogg returned to the large briefing room where the Starforce team had assembled.“We are in orbit over the boarder planet An’anke.Our military intelligence reports that the Nova Empire has built up a large surveillance presence.The Supremor believes they have been studying and probing vulnerabilities in our defenses, all based from this border planet.Now you each have your individual assignments.Our mission is to locate their central archives and take whatever data may have been left behind during the surprise attack.”

“How do we know they fled during the attack?” Jan-Nus asked.Yon-Rogg gave the new operative a harsh glance at being interrupted, but continued on without comment as if no one had actually spoken out of turn.

“The Accuser Corps will complete their first wave of bombing within the hour.We do not anticipate resistance in the base, but as always, be prepared for anything.”

Yon-Rogg turned on his heel, gesturing for Korath and Att-Lass to follow him to the bridge.Initially he had thought Jan-Nus would be an apt successor for Korath’s role as second, but the operative was still too young and inexperienced.While he lacked the confidence the position demanded, Att-Lass had filled the vacuum of needed leadership and silently erased all doubts of his capabilities.

He found it strange.Att-Lass and Bron-Char had always stuck close to Vers before, joining in on her hijinks or trading jokes.Like Vers they were formidable and suited to their roles, but had shown no desire for the greater responsibilities of command.Since her departure, Att-Lass had become more serious, more sure of himself.Perhaps Yon-Rogg wasn’t the only one caught up in Vers’ spell.He willed his thoughts away.There was no time for that now, he had a job to do.

This was a simple matter: a retrieval mission.Relaying individual orders, coaching the newer operatives, performing system checks, these routine tasks were familiar and effortless.And he was grateful after the _success_ —he still grimaced at the word—of their mission to Demeter VII, the mission objectives had been of a more mundane nature.They hadn’t demanded he kill again... or rather, _yet_.He could almost pretend life had returned to its previous simplicity.Almost.

But whenever he would start to allow himself the contentment of his current role in Starforce, his mind would drift back to the Supremor wearing Vers face, flaying open his weaknesses and dissecting them with unnatural eyes.Or he would hear the pleading of the man back on that agrarian world begging for his life.No, this was what a predator did, luring their victims into a false sense of security before the attack was launched.He could not allow himself to become prey and his duty was to remember that.

A final check of the navigational coordinates then he and Att-Lass settled in to wait at the ship’s controls for the signal from the Accuser fleet that the bombing wave had completed.Korath watched from a nearby chair.

The sand hung thick in the air, launched skyward from the impacted of the bombs, then thrown by the strong winds.It was hard to see anything on the planet’s surface.

The _Aerion_ bounced on the sandy currents as the ship careened towards An’anke.Yon-Rogg glanced over at Att-Lass as he struggled with the controls to maintain their heading.This was not to be the smoothest of landings.What appeared to be a minor storm grew with their descent until they were surrounded, dropping through the atmosphere.The sounds of sand and rocks pelting the shell of their craft welcomed them.

“At least they won’t see us coming.”

Yon-Rogg laughed at Att-Lass’ quip.It was so like something Vers might have said.

“I think the bombs might have given them a hint,” Bron-Char called from his jump seat.

“Is it always like this?” Cas-Tor asked him.

“If we’re lucky,” Bron-Char answered.“Otherwise it wouldn’t be any fun.”

“I’d prefer to be in one piece, myself,” Nem-Esis grumbled as the ship hit a pocket of air and dropped suddenly.

“Brace for landing,” Att-Lass called to the team.

“We’ve been bracing since you started flying,” Bron-Char yelled.

Nova Corps’ attempts to cope with the frequent sandstorms were evidenced by the dramatic contrast on the landing pad.Thick black lines set in contrast to the stark white of the platform.It gave them a few additional seconds of visibility, but no more.Too quickly the _Aerion_ swerved and jerked as it struggled to set down cleanly.They landed with an abrupt halt, tilting to one side as a torrent of wind caught the craft, then tumbling at the sudden stop of momentum.

Yon-Rogg unhooked himself from his seat in a flash.“Stay with the ship,” he instructed Korath, “check to make sure nothing is damaged.”

Korath nodded.This had been the plan after all, to test the team without him there.The rough landing provided the perfect excuse to keep him away from the group.“I’ll monitor your progress on comms,” he said.

“The rest of you,” Yon-Rogg said as he turned to the five remaining members of his team grabbing their choice weapons, “let’s go.”

The hatch opened and they proceeded down the landing ramp.The wind buffeted them as they ran and Yon-Rogg staggered several times as they approached the entrance.The large doors lay on their sides, the roof of the entrance missing, and the floor cratered in from the force of a blast.At least Ronan’s goons could hit something, he thought wryly.

A klaxon blared in time with flash of the red lights, its dual roving beams broken by raining dust and plumes of smoke.Outside on the barren world, the dust storm continued to rage.The shattered windows provided little protection against the elements, and gusts of wind threw sand at them in constant, pelting waves.Despite them moving to the facility’s interior, the cracked shell of the building provided minimal shelter from the elements.

“Someone shut that thing off,” he barked.

“On it,” Att-Lass answered as he fired a pistol at the alarm.The siren’s song wailed as it died away.

Distant alarms still sounded and the wind howled, but his most immediate annoyance was addressed.

“All right, you have your orders,” Yon-Rogg reminded them.“Nem-Esis, with me,” he instructed as the team split.

Jan-Nus and Att-Lass moved to cover, checking thermal imaging to verify the staff had indeed fled in the attack before moving to guard the landing pad and their ship should any remaining Nova Corps make it out of the base.From the entrance the corridor branched right and left, continuing in a wide oval that followed the shape of the facility’s footprint.Bron-Char and Cas-Tor took the left corridor while he and Nem-Esis took the right.They would meet where the two halls converged.

The two of them pounded down the halls, scanning each room for anything that could be of use.Most rooms were unsecured and many of the terminal stands looked as though the computers had been physically ripped from their pedestals, the information whisked away by the scientists or analysts when the first bombs struck.There had to be a records vault or archives somewhere housing their backups, but visibility was limited in the failing structure and progress was slow as they methodically searched each room.

Yon-Rogg began to wonder if this was simply a blind chase they had been sent on by the Supremor, another test to prove his loyalty.If this was a surveillance post, it seemed a poor effort.No satellites or communication hubs, either planet-side or in orbit.The base seemed completely cut off from the wider galaxy.Perhaps they studied intelligence rather than listening for it.Then, halfway through their circuit, they found what he suspected were the central records.

As expected, the door was locked.Not even the cut power could solve the issue of battery back-ups.Yon-Rogg gestured for Nem-Esis to set the demolition charges around the frame and they retreated further down the hall.A loud crack sliced through the howl of the storm and echoed down the corridor followed by the answering thud of the door falling outward.

“Guard the door,” he instructed as he moved to the counter that wrapped around two sides of the room.

Electronic displays, holo projections, and data ports were scattered across the surface.Many of the computers still had rows of data drives plugged in.Yon-Rogg began frantically grabbing the drives and stuffing them into one of the compartments on his belt, paying little attention to the identifications along the sides of the drives.

Then one in particular caught his eye.Most of the drives were labeled with a series of letters and numbers, but this one had a single world.His Xandarian was rusty, even at the height of his understanding he found little use in fluency in a foreign language, especially one not spoken in the empire.He paused, waiting as his translation implant took over and the Xandarian symbols swirled and reformed until he saw a single word as clearly as if it were written by any Kree: ‘ _Remembrance_.’ Casting a glance over his shoulder he saw Nem-Esis still guarding the entrance, her weapon drawn and back towards him.

_A Kree’s first duty is remembrance._

Staring down at the word, he felt time slow and the years push him back.He felt as if he was eight years old again, a new recruit standing among a huddle of other children, terrified and away from his family for the first time.Afraid to be alone.Afraid to fail.Afraid to feel.He could see the eyes of his instructor as her gaze met each child and the timbre of her voice as she began:

“All Kree, have the responsibility to remember.Everything that we are, everything that we will become is based on our collective memory.There is power in memory.We remember those who have wronged us, those who would have become our masters and enslave us, those who look to us for guidance and protection.It is why the Supreme Intelligence is so vital to our continued existence.They are the embodiment of memory.They are our remembrance.”

“Everything alright?” Nem-Esis asked over her shoulder at the sudden silence as his flurry of activity halted.

The memory slipped away like sand through a clenched fist.He shook his head, trying to force the image away and snap himself back to his present task.

“Fine,” Yon-Rogg answered brusquely, keeping his back towards her.

Yon-Rogg tucked the small data drive in his hand and fished out the pebble.Pressing it into the smooth center, the device seemed to fracture before moving to cover the drive, pulling it into its core. _Close_ , he thought.Then the stone rippled and returned to its original form.He dropped the pebble back in its pouch and resumed pulling the other data drives from their ports and tucking them away.

He wondered constantly after the word and the information the drive contained as he went through the motions of completing the mission.Did the Supreme Intelligence suspect the facility had this file tucked away on a small drive with a code word that seemed innocuous to any Xandarian but would be so important to any Kree?Is this what he had been sent to find?And would They know what he planned to do with it?

* * *

Yon-Rogg pulled the hood of his jacket down further and cast a backwards glance over his shoulder before palming his hand on the keypad to the safe house.

“We weren’t expecting you today,” the guard said at the interior door as Yon-Rogg entered.

Yon-Rogg ignored the comment and asked after Drovk.

“Back room,” the guard answered.“But they’re in conference,” the Skrull said to his retreating form.

Yon-Rogg navigated the familiar path as the din of voices grew steadily clearer.He tucked himself by the entrance, but proceeded no further.Shielded from view, he listened as Drovk conferenced with Carol, Talos, and several other voices he did not recognize.It felt dangerous to allow an open door during the middle of such a secret conference, but he supposed that if the members of the cell could not trust one another, then all hope of the Skrulls finding a home world really was lost.

When Drovk finally emerged nearly an hour later, Yon-Rogg had the drive in his hand.

“What’s this?”The Skrull asked as Yon-Rogg pressed the short, wide stick into his palm.

“I found that in a Nova Corps surveillance facility, along with a host of other data that was turned over to the hierarchy.”

Drovk read the label.“Nostalgia?”His forehead creased.

“Remembrance,” Yon-Rogg corrected.“A specific term taught to all Kree as children.It was the first name of the Supreme Intelligence when It was created.”

“And have you read what’s on this?”

Yon-Rogg shook his head.“Whatever it is, it’s likely about the Supremor.”

Drovk looked at him, his face unreadable.“Does anyone know you took this?”

“No,” he answered.“I made sure of that.”

Drovk nodded.Then said in his typically gruff manner, “Good work.”

Such simple words, but Yon-Rogg felt the stirrings of something he had not felt in months.He felt pride.

* * *

“This is much better,” the Supremor took form and stood before him wearing his own features.“We knew eventually you would put aside your pathetic fixation with the Terran once you remembered yourself.”

Yon-Rogg bowed his head.“It is my honor to serve, Your Intelligence.”

“Of course,” the Supremor said mildly.“We sent you to An’anke to recover information vital to the security of the empire and the protection of all Kree.The information We sought was strangely absent.It seems We have a traitor in Our midst.”

Yon-Rogg’s eyes widened slightly.

“Who would be so bold?” Yon-Rogg asked, affecting shock.

“Only the worst sort of Kree would betray their people to ally with Our ancient enemies.Mar-Vell threw her lot in with the Skrulls, and it seems someone else has now done the same—”He held his breath. “—and betrayed us to the Xandarians.”

He counted as he exhaled.Someone allied with the Nova Empire.Someone else.

“We suspect one of our spies embedded with Nova Corps has been compromised.There was information that was to be there on An’anke.Information that was strangely absent from the cache you and your team retrieved.”

“Allow me to find them for You,” he said with all the fervor of a zealot. 

The Supreme Intelligence gave him an appraising glance.“Yes, We believe so.You and Nem-Esis will find Our rouge agent and eliminate them.”

He felt his heart beat faster, a slow increase that would soon climb to a constant rush.

“Does this prospect excite you, Yon-Rogg?”The Supremor turned, a feral look in Their eye.

“I want to prove myself,” he answered.He had so very much he needed to prove.

“And so you shall.Once the agent is located, you will be sent to dispense Our justice.”

As the simulation ended and he found himself again in the physical world, he sank to his knees, his heart racing.He now knew with utter certainty what was on that drive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was just incredibly difficult to write, though necessary for plot. I’m still not entirely happy with it, but like a mother bird kicking baby birds out of the nest, it’s time for this thing to get going.  
> Ananke is the Greek goddess of destiny and mother to the fates.


	7. Risk and Reward

With a furtive glance over his shoulder, Yon-Rogg darted into the alley of the Skrull safe house.It was not a scheduled day for him to check-in with Drovk, but the wicked gleam in the Supremor’s eyes still burned in his mind.He needed a task, or barring that, the companionship of those not blindly devoted to the machine.

How strange it still struck him that this was his chosen refuge.

He approached the inner door, and surprisingly found the guard was anticipating him.“They’re waiting for you,” the Skrull murmured as Yon-Rogg slipped past him.

“You knew I’d come?” he asked.His brow furrowed.How would they know to expect him today?The Skrull laughed as if Yon-Rogg had made a grand joke.

Drovk and most of the other Skrulls were deep in conference with the off-world contingent.He could hear Carol’s voice occasionally breaking in.This time rather than lurking at the entrance, he slipped into the room and walked over to where Drovk stood.

Carol caught sight of him as he neared.Did he imagine a faint smile on her lips as he approached?

“Drovk,” Carol said to the Skrull crisply and jerked her head to the side, a clear indication of a dismissal.

“Right,” he nodded.“Let’s take a break, fellas.The captain and the commander need a quick word.”

Yon-Rogg caught her staring at him as therest filed out.She wore an indescribable, blank expression on her face, so utterly calm it unnerved him.Had her eyes been a vivid green, he might mistake her for Them.But after the door swung shut, her face melted into something more familiar.She looked... pleased, he decided, or rather he hoped.A faint grin tugged at her mouth, but she schooled her features and remained silent.

The space between them still rippled, awkward and stilted.He had been so used to being constantly in her presence that he felt ill-equipped to read her now with light years between them.He couldn’t read her, but he could always fall back on teasing: the first stone in the foundation of their friendship.

“Did you miss me?”He threw her words from months prior back at her with a teasing edge and far more bravado than he felt with her constantly unsettling him.

She lifted an eyebrow and smirked.“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she asked.He would, as a matter of fact, and his eyes gleamed in response.She coughed softly, inelegantly, as though she was as unbalanced from their exchanges as he was.“Has Drovk briefed you on the data?”

While Drovk had yet to disclose the information, he had an idea as to the drive’s contents which he admitted with a tilt of his head and a shrug.His tone so certain despite himself that she immediately caught on.

“Let me guess,” Carol said, “that word was something special you forgot to cover in Kree 101.”

“Something like that.”He acknowledged.“The Supremor’s first name.”

She joked.“I didn’t know the Supremor had a last name.”

“No,” he faltered, feeling again like one more failure was stacked against him, one more weight on the scales.He neglected her by not providing knowledge so basic to every Kree.“The original name we called Them.It dates back to Their creation.”

Her eyebrows rose at that and he allowed himself the briefest feeling of satisfaction that he was able to surprise her, even if it was his own lapse in sharing the information in the first place.It was a selfish feeling, one that should be stamped out before it fermented into something more unseemly.But once he knew far more than her and fed her scraps of information.Despite how brimming with wonderful possibilities the reverse seemed, some changes he chafed against and being ignorant was one of them.Now it felt like she knew everything while he knew nothing.With all the knowledge from her vantage point in command, he was but a lowly foot solider, lacking perspective.

“That would explain why you knew to grab it.Any other lessons you’ve been keeping from me?”She smirked.

“Oh plenty, but this is hardly the time or place.”His eyes danced and he fought a smile.

She bit her lip and her cheeks darkened.Over the years he had carefully measured anything that could be considered flirtatious or suggestive, seasoning their conversations sparingly lest she become too greedy for it.Or worse, he betray the full extent of his own regard.“I guess we’ll have to find the time,” she said in a whisper.

They locked eyes and the moment seemed to stretch.Was she also imaging what might happen when they found the time?

“So what exactly was on the drive?” he asked, focus restored, the moment lost.

She pointed at a nearby console and instructed him to read the screen.They stood in silence on opposite ends of the galaxy, he reading the contents of the drive, while she read his face.The information was staggering: the locations and coordinates of the three sites housing the Supreme Intelligence’s systems.Besides the temple on Hala, a second location on the planet rested outside of the city.The third location was a large mobile platform orbiting the system’s sun.The information continued, listing vulnerabilities, surveillance images, relative sizes of the military forces guarding the sites, and known defenses.

Yon-Rogg was stunned by the sheer volume of information.His eyes blinked as he looked up from the screen to meet Carol’s eyes.“This is—”

“Everything we’ve been after, I know,” she said.“It seems the Nova Empire had the same plan as the Skrulls.”

“I’m a bit surprised the shapeshifters had a harder time gathering this data than the Xandarians.”

“I will not tell Talos you said that,” she chuckled. “He’s actually warming up to you, and that would ruin it.”

“Do we have enough forces to hit all three targets at once?”

 _We_.It was the first time he had openly counted himself among Carol and her Skrull’s forces.He wondered if she noticed.

“Not yet, and we’re discussing how to fix that.”

“How?”

She detailed the plans to approach Xandar about a joint operation, and which political or military leader might be easily persuaded.His eyebrows rose at that.Two empires, though one mostly fractured and in hiding, teaming up against the Supremor was bound to cause panic amongst the Kree.Maybe they would even question their so-called deity.Either that or it would galvanize the Kree, driving them further into the suffocating embrace of the machine.

And though Carol firmly stated her quarrel remained only with the Supreme Intelligence, the more soldiers were involved the more likely old blood feuds would spill into open violence against his people.Even the wrong word to someone with the Xandarians could lead back to the Kree and these potential vulnerabilities removed from the board before the match began.

“Be careful who you talk to in Nova Corps,” he warned.

Her eyes widened and she seemed to stand straighter, but he couldn’t tell if it was from surprise at the warning or amusement that he found it necessary.“Oh?”

“I think the Kree have fully infiltrated their organization,” he explained.“I think that a spy intentionally labeled the drive differently from the others to make it easier to identify when Starforce raided the compound.”

“Except their spy was foiled by our spy.”

“There are likely many more.This can’t be a single operative, not on the scale of empires.And the Supremor is sending me after the spy They think kept this from being recovered.”

“To capture?”

He shook his head.

Carol let out a low whistle.“That’s rough.Are you...?”She trailed off.

He paused before answering.Shame circled around him and slowed his speech.“I don’t see how I can avoid it,” he confessed.

“You’re not a executioner, Yon-Rogg.”

He felt caught between laughter and tears.The first time he saw her had been as he played executioner, ending Mar-Vell’s life in an impulsive shot.Mar-Vell’s death had been contrary to his stated orders, perhaps, but in the months and years that followed, he wondered.Surely there was a part of him that wanted to do it, that wanted to see the traitor die.It couldn’t have been simply an accident, could it?No, he wanted to do it, the dark corners of his mind cheered while his rigid control protested the thought.He might have believed himself a savior, but was that just another lie he told himself to feed his own ego?

He wanted to believe Carol, desperately so.Even now after the knowledge of all his crimes had been laid before her, she still wanted to believe he was more than just a mindless weapon.Once he told her a weapon of the Kree was all he was meant for. And there he was, the blade ordered to strike the killing blow for the Supremor, still.

“Apparently that’s exactly what I am now.”

“No, you’re not,” she hissed sharply.“You’re a good person just with bad orders.”

He snorted.“What have I done that’s good?”

“This,” she said, desperate pleading in her voice.“Here.You’re doing good things with _us_.”

He wished he had more to his credit than treason, that she had more to praise him for than his recent defection.Had he not accomplished anything she considered worthy in their six years together?Apparently not and the knowledge stung.He looked at her squarely.“Will a few data files make up for all I’ve done?”

“Yes.And I know you’ll think of something.You’re good at improvising.”

He looked at his feet and said nothing, unconvinced despite her words and utterly certain that something terrible lurked on the horizon.

* * *

In hindsight, Korath’s departure signaled the point when everything fell apart.

A week after his former second completed his transfer to the Accuser Corps, Yon-Rogg and Nem-Esis were dispatched to a small border colony between Kree and Xandarian space.A mining world with little aside from common ore deposits to recommend itself, it managed to remain neutral to both sides, straddling the delicate political line between necessary and unremarkable.Yon-Rogg didn’t even bother remembering the name or location of the system.It simply didn’t matter.The only thing to distinguish this planet from any of the other unremarkable balls of dirt was the disavowed Kree spy.

The spy who expected extraction, but their orders were to eliminate.That fact settled in Yon-Rogg’s stomach like a leaden weight.

Every spy knew the risks, he rationalized, but this Kree had done nothing to deserve this death.And so this misguided spy would wait for them in an abandoned warehouse just outside the spaceport.He would greet them with relief, counting the minutes until they could escape the planet’s atmosphere and return to Hala.But the spy would never leave, all because a machine ordered it to be otherwise.And so Starforce was again dispatched, not to save, but to destroy.

The planet must have been located in the same nebula as Demeter VII, Yon-Rogg thought as they walked the path to the beacon.The same purple-velvet sky rippled overhead.His throat felt dry and tight and each crunch of gravel under their feet seemed another loud crack that splintered the peaceful autumn night.Once again the memory of the old man pleading for his life flashed through Yon-Rogg’s mind.Would this man beg too?

They approached the location and the anticipatory tension bled out down the walls and onto the earth.It waxed and waned, pulsing like an underlying tide and he could feel it deep within him.The thrumming of his heart matching the rhythmic chorus of a nightbird’s song crying in the distance and echoing somewhere behind his eyes and above his ears.He would have a migraine once this was finished.

“Establish a perimeter,” he ordered Nem-Esis.“Make sure no one enters.”

Nem-Esis scowled, tightening her lips and sparing him an icy look, but as his subordinate, her only choice was to relent.With a sharp nod communicating her own displeasure, she turned to circle the building.Yon-Rogg watched her disappear around a corner before pulling at the door.It groaned, then yielded easily to resistance.He slipped inside the warehouse, into the dark only broken by faint wisps of moonlight through windows near the roofline.

In the dark of night, the world reduced to a single room.With a flick of his wrist, a beam of light sliced the darkness.Yon-Rogg cast the light around the room in a narrow arc until he found his quarry huddled near a row of crates as though that would shield him.The spy stood and crept towards him, coming to stand in a small puddle of dim light and Yon-Rogg cut off the harsh artificial illumination.The world was plunged into shadows.In silence they stood waiting for their eyes to adjust to the darkness.Then the time had come.

“They sent Starforce to extract me?”The spy threw a nervous look around them.Yon-Rogg’s hand hovered over the trigger, ready to pull out the blaster.His fingers itched and he longed to follow orders, to allow instinct to take over and his conscience to fall aside, to once again surrender to the ease of having all thought, concern, and will subservient to another’s.His hand flexed.

Until that very moment, he had been unsure if he would reflexively follow orders or take one step further from them, to throw himself into the sea of disloyalty like Mar-Vell once had and be cast about on their waves.There was no going back and this was his moment when that reality crystallized.A sudden calm skated over him and everything that had once been hazy around the edges sharpened into focus.

He would never kill for Them again.

Yon-Rogg’s hand moved away from his weapon and toward his ear.He flipped off his comms. 

“So are you here to extract me?Are you here to take me home?” the man asked with a hopeful warble.

“No,” Yon-Rogg’s voice was dismissive and cold, the perfect disguise for the occasion.If he could fool the Supreme Intelligence then he could fool a mere spy.“The Supremor fears your cover was compromised after the raid on An’anke.You are to create a new cover and await orders.”

“Are you my new contact?” the spy cocked his head to the side, confused.Starforce wasn’t equipped for espionage, nor would they be familiar with the intricacies of relaying orders or debriefing a spy.

There was an opportunity there.A chance to take one more resource away from the Supreme Intelligence and make it work for the Skrulls.The idea was intoxiacating.He could steal another tool away from the Supremor, true, but more appealing was the thought of how Carol, Drovk, even Talos would approve.But it would arise too much suspicion and there was too much of a risk the spy would contact Hala and expose Yon-Rogg’s true loyalties.

Instead he kept his mask of indifference firmly in place, hoping it would protect him from scrutiny like it had so many times.“Absolutely not,” he answered, “Starforce is too important to waste on a single spy.I’m here to ensure you destroy your beacon.”

The spy gaped at him.In the dim light he could see the man standing mouth wide and silent in horror.No beacon meant no contact with Hala, or hope of rescue.For a spy it might as well have been a death sentence if caught and exile if not. 

Do it, Yon-Rogg silently pleaded.Just take it on face value.Don’t question it.Both of our lives depend on this.

With a long shuddering inhale, the spy pulled out his beacon and crushed it underfoot.

“Now hide and wait until I’m gone before leaving this building,” he hissed at the spy lowly.Then he aimed his blaster at the ground and fired two shots.Though unlikely for the sound to carry far, the illusion was necessary in case Nem-Esis lurked just outside.

As he began to move away the spy asked lowly, “You were supposed to kill me, weren’t you?”His tone lacked the questioning lilt.

There was no point in lying about something so easily realized.“Yes.”

And then, the spy understood.“The Supreme Intelligence thinks I betrayed Them, don’t They?”

Again.“Yes.”

“So why don’t you?”

The best lie, Yon-Rogg had long ago discovered, was one based in truth.With Vers, the easiest lies for her to swallow were the ones that edged closest to the truth of her life before.A lie wrapped in truth was sweeter to believe, and easier to sell.He had never considered himself a skilled liar, but then the business with Vers taught him how wrong he was.Lying to a stranger was a simple matter after spending six years effectively lying to oneself.

“I believe there’s a traitor in Starforce.Until they are apprehended, it is best that you disappear.The Supremor will know of your continued loyalty once the traitor is discovered.”

The spy nodded.“You have to find them.”

“I believe I am very close to them.”Such a misleading statement said so solemnly.He wanted to applaud his own gall.

“Thank you,” the spy whispered and without a backwards glance, Yon-Rogg slipped from the warehouse.

Outside he looked for Nem-Esis, rounding the building several times.She was nowhere to be found.Annoyed and ready to lambast her for dereliction of her duties, he stomped towards the spaceport where their small craft was berthed.He wanted to be gone from this place, to return to Hala and put this matter behind him.

The hatch to the ship was wide opened and he strode inside with a lecture primed on his lips.He looked around, but the craft was empty.He turned.

“That spy never betrayed the Supreme Intelligence.”Nem-Esis stood at the hatch and stared at him with uncontrolled fury, her weapon drawn and aimed at Yon-Rogg.“But you did.”


	8. Pillar of Salt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing action sequences are not my forte. This was difficult and took a really long time.

Yon-Rogg looked at the firestorm on Nem-Esis’ face.Her blue cheeks flushed purple and her mouth was drawn into a thin line.She vibrated with rage.The barrel of her firearm rocked slightly, from rage or fear Yon-Rogg was uncertain.He sat on the tinder and she held the flame.

He raised his palms in surrender.“Nem-Esis, what are you talking about?”Condescension dripped from his words and had the desired effect.Her sudden bravado wilted slightly.Nevertheless, she adjusted the grip of her sidearm, holding the weapon in both hands and slowly stepping into craft.

“You switched off your comms.You broke Starforce regulations.”She protested with the plaintive insistence of one who had been personally wronged, as though her accusations were not offenses against the Supremor, but against her, his team.

It didn’t matter what she heard, what she thought she knew.All that mattered was the reality of the moment: he was in combat against an armed opponent.What would happen after was a secondary concern to escape.

He scoffed.“And because of this, you think I would betray our people to Xandar?You really are a disappointment.”

She cited the specific regulation number to relieve him of duty, her delivery impeccable as she stepped closer and snatched away his own weapon, holstering it on her person. 

“If you were a better operative than you were a reader, you would know how ridiculous this is.” Acid dripped from his words.“I have no allegiance to Xandar, Nem-Esis.”

“No,” she insisted, though her confidence again flagged and her weapon wavered.“You’re lying!”

Her grip loosened and her arms dropped, slightly, so slightly she probably didn’t notice.But it was exactly the opening Yon-Rogg had been waiting for and her lapse in focus was all the invitation he needed.She hadn’t retreated far enough away to escape the onslaught.

In a flash, Yon-Rogg rushed at her.Head lowered, he hit her with his shoulder as the opposite arm reached for the weapon.The momentum knocked her in the stomach and pushed the air from her.Nem-Esis stumbled to the ground, landing hard on her back with Yon-Rogg tumbling on top of her.The sidearm flew to a corner of the ship, and her hand flailed wildly for it. He pinned a wrist against the floor.

With her lose arm, she fumbled for his weapon in her holster and kicked wildly while he struggled to keep her arm pinned against the craft’s floor panels with one hand.With a growl, he pulled the sidearm free and kicked it behind him.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Nem-Esis,” he hissed between clenched teeth.

She spat at him, thrashing against his hold.“You’re a liar and a traitor.Only one of us is walking out this ship.”

She was right, of course.But now that the conflict had been reduced to hand-to-hand, she was woefully outmatched.

“Suit yourself.”He whipped opened his gauntlet.The gravity field would incapacitate her.

A blue hand shot up between the gauntlet’s extended prongs, breaking off one of the outer tines and brandishing it at his face like a knife.He felt the skin tear and blood trickled down his face.In shock he leaned back as his opponent lunged up and struggled against him with renewed vigor.

Nem-Esis slithered out from under him, but as she fought for footing, he kicked a leg around.She landed on her back with loud a thud, her improvised weapon skittering across the floor beyond her reach.Then he fell upon her again, this time his hands found her throat.Furious, injured, and high on adrenaline, he allowed instinct to take over.

She had lost the broken piece of his gauntlet, but he felt burning fire as her nails clawed at his face.Droplets of blood blooming from the trenches.

“I swore no oath to Xandar,” he hissed as her eyes rolled back in her head and her limbs went limp as she slipped into unconsciousness.She sagged, melting against the floor.“But you were right when you said I betrayed the Supreme Intelligence.”He whispered his confession now that Nem-Esis was insensible to it.

He stood, gasping for air, for control, as the thud of his hammering heart beat against his ribs.He checked her pulse, checked her breath.She lived, which presented its own set of complications.

In a few short minutes everything had gone so terribly wrong.

Yon-Rogg stared down at Nem-Esis’ unconscious body.He could kill her.He _should_ kill her.Silence on the ship was only hope he had of escaping before anyone discovered her.She would rouse and sound the alarm.The planet may claim neutrality, but that did not mean she was without allies.Disposing of her would be expedient, efficient.It would be what any member of Starforce in his position should do.

Which is perhaps why he didn’t.

He retrieved the piece of his gauntlet from the floor and tucked it away in his belt pocket before securing his own sidearm.Then he searched the craft for Nem-Esis’ weapon and strapped the it to his leg.Then his focus narrowed to a small series of actions: restraints were located and applied, a gag fashioned, Nem-Esis’s communications chip was removed from her glove and snapped.Yon-Rogg exited the ship, locking the hatch behind him as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t moments before been fighting for his life.

Outside of the spaceport Yon-Rogg stared up at the night sky and finally, in the resulting stillness did something he swore to himself he would never do again.It last happened on C-53 to terrible effect in a small wooden shack in a marsh once he realized his carefully constructed cage had fractured and the weapon escaped.He felt it again staring up at that purple sky, clawing at his throat and begging him for release.And he let it loose.He allowed the full force of his panic to wash over him in.He drowned in it.He had never wanted to feel this desperate again, yet here he was.

He almost headed in the direction of the warehouse.No doubt the spy would still be hiding amongst the crates.Yon-Rogg disregarded the idea outright.As grateful as the man would be for his continued existence, reappearing so soon would only lead to further questions.The spy might thank Yon-Rogg for sparing one life by taking his own.

Instead he turned towards the outskirts of the settlement, towards the endless stretch of brush and wilderness that stood sentry against the encroachment of civilization on the small, unremarkable world.He would hide there for a day or two until Nem-Esis regained consciousness and, believing him to have fled the system, returned to Hala herself.

* * *

The frigid night winds ripped and tore like knives.Even with the insulation in his uniform, there were limits to how much protection it provided.

He picked his way through the brambles.The plants seemed dead, lifeless in the chill.Thorns scratched at his armor, now recolored a dark gray to hide amongst the brush.Four days he hid, making more use of his survival training than he expected to.

The decision to not take the ship’s survival kit had been deliberate.Nem-Esis would have noted its absence and likely guessed he meant to hide in the wilds beyond the settlement.He hoped she would now assume the proclaimed Xandarian spy would be safely off-world and beyond the Kree.But as the urgency of the moment dulled into long stretches of waiting, he doubted himself.As the days wore on and he scavenged for mere mouthfuls of refreshment, he doubted more.

How was he to get off this world?Was there even another settlement nearby and how would he find it?Another day, he promised, and then he would head back to the edges of the settlement.Three days later he had to admit to himself he was hopelessly lost in the thicket.

The earth was black, the vines charcoal that surrounded him like an endless cage.In the dark, buffeted by howling winds that seemed to come from every direction, he became increasingly unsure.Maybe he should have tried to hire a transport and fled the system.Maybe he should have killed her, short-circuited the transponder, and flown the ship to the next system.

How would anyone find him?How would he find his way out? Surely Drovk had reported his absence.But how would he even be located?There had been no discussion on how he would proceed if his cover was compromised. 

He couldn’t even risk sending off a comm.

Maybe it was better this way.

He wished he had Vers’ old tag, he thought glumly one evening as the sun sunk low on the horizon and he braced for another sleepless night of the frozen winds screaming his failures.The ritual of passing it back and forth at night had calmed him more than he realized.Passing the pebble back and forth lacked the same surety.His nail skated across the smooth surface and he longed for raised lettering to catch.He should have taken it with him, just this once.Of course this mission would have been different than all the rest.

He should have known, Yon-Rogg berated himself, he should have known that without the rest of his team to buffer him, the sharp-eyed recruit would have noticed his defection.He could fool the others, but she was too like Minn-Erva to not see through the ruse.The thought rang false even as it formed.His own decision to save the spy had lead to this, and it had been as unplanned as the resulting decisions.He had allowed himself to be impulsive, emotional, and now it had lead him to the wilderness.Collective, he and Carol really where two of a kind.Still, he felt adrift without his anchor.He would never see it again.

He would never see Carol again.

He would die out in the wilderness under a purple sky.

* * *

He was burning, roasting under the desert sun.Every time before the temperature had been merely unpleasantly warm, but now he felt as though he was boiling.It was so very hot.The sun beat down with an unrelenting force.

How did he get here?He couldn’t remember.Before he was... somewhere.Somewhere muted and cold.

Where was he again?It was terribly hot.

Oh, yes.The desert.

“How did you get out here, Commander?”Vers, no, _Carol_ had found him.She always found him.His errant pupil turned friend turned something else always found him while he played the lost wayfarer in the desert.Something was off, but he couldn’t tell what.Carol sounded distant, like she was speaking underwater.Or maybe he was underwater.

But then why was he burning?

He tried to answer, but his throat felt like he had swallowed a pitcher of sand.

“I’m going to need a hand over here.”Carol’s voice rose as she called to someone beyond his view.It was hard to even focus on her with the black spots dancing in his vision.Who had she brought with her?Her friends were in the small ship he had been pursuing.

Carol reached out a hand and he took it, like he had so many times before.This time she pulled him up.Yon-Rogg sagged against her, gazing up at her with bleary-eyed relief.

“Oh, none of that,” Carol muttered, slowly beginning to walk the two of them.Yon-Rogg sagged, barely able to shuffle his feet.“Bleeding idiot, you’re hallucinating aren’t you?”

He tried to speak again, coughing and hacking until he could choke out a sentence.“What are you talking about, Carol?”He struggled to understand.Nothing made sense.

“Yeah, thought so.This’ll be fun to explain later.”Carol attempted to walk them faster.He heard another set of feet rushing towards them and, taking his other arm, helped to guide them to... his ruined drop ship that would take him back to Hala.That must be where they were going.

“I can’t go back,” he whispered.

“You’re not going back,” Carol promised.

The relief slammed into him.The few feeble strands holding him together snapped in unison.He stumbled, Carol and the other figure fought to keep him upright.Black spots flocked together in his vision, joining in large clusters.All the sounds drifted further and further away.

He was sinking, slipping into the abyss.The dark promise of a blissful unconsciousness pulled him under.His final thoughts before he sank beneath the waves were the faint wonderings as to why he had never noticed Carol was green before, and why she sounded so much like Talos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to stress that Talos did not sim Carol. Yon-Rogg is just hallucinating.


	9. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how the Kree calendar system works, but in the movie they reference “hours” so I am just assuming they measure time in the same hours, weeks, and months that we do.

The first thing he became aware of was a persistent beeping.The faint chirp of a bird, an incessant, repeating noise that filtered past the veil between wake and rest before gradually swelling into a demanding door chime.Was Vers at the door?It was still too early to train.

With a grunt, Yon-Rogg forced his eyes open.

In the dimly illuminated room, he took inventory of the items scattered about his surroundings.A chair to the left with his uniform draped over the arms, a small table, a cart by the hatch, a beeping to the right.A thin blanket covered his legs and coarse fabric scratched against his skin as he moved.

He craned his neck to glance over his shoulder.Blinded by a single light on the wall behind him, he squinted.The sound continued.Who was at the door?

No, there was no door, he realized as the fog dissipated, rolling away and retreating further to the edges of his mind.Reality poured in and edges sharpened.It was medical equipment.Gradually he emerged fully from sleep, into the waking world.Medical devices sounded in a cacophony all around him, the smell of antiseptic lingered in the air.

Where was he?

“Oh, you’re awake.”A Kree woman stood at the entrance holding a metal tray.

A Kree...

Yon-Rogg moved to escape from the bed.In a fumbling mess, his arms flailed against the sheets, his feet kicked towards the edge.He struggled to pull the medical tubing from his arms.The beeping intensified, cascading faster and louder until he felt it would split his skull.His limbs felt heavy, uncoordinated and refused to respond as he wished.He felt a faint sheen of cold sweat gathering at his brow, but he pressed on.

The Kree had found him, but he would not go quietly.He would fight, to the very end if need be.Death, he decided, was a preferable outcome to returning to the Supremor.

“Wait, no!” the woman shouted.“Dammit!Talos, get in here!”The tray clattered to the floor as she hurried to the bedside.

Wait, Talos?Yon-Rogg halted.

The Skrull general appeared at the door and rushed over to joined her, each flanking Yon-Rogg and pushing him back against the pillows.Only when his eyes locked with Talos’ did his rapid panting stutter.

“Easy there, Commander.”His fingers dug into Yon-Rogg’s shoulder.

“I told you it was a bad idea to appear as a Kree,” the woman bit out.Her face shimmered and melted from blue to green.

Talos shrugged.“I thought it would make him more comfortable.”

“Clearly not.”The woman glanced over at a monitor, her brow furrowing with worry.“He’s going to need a sedative.”

“No,” Yon-Rogg gasped between ragged draws, “no, I’m fine.”He forced his breaths to lengthen and slow with minimal success.The pounding, percussive beat of his heart hammered on in the dull emptiness left in panic’s wake.He was safe.He was with the Skrulls. Still his body lagged when catching up to the reality of the moment.

He caught the woman’s guarded eyes.“I am fine,” he insisted.He collapsed back against the pillows.The room continued to swim.He felt drained.

“You should rest.”

That he could manage.

“Are you going to be all right?”The woman’s eyes met his before flicking back to the monitors.She had kind eyes, he decided.Sharp, like Talos’, but lacking the ruthlessly calculating quality.A civilian then, not a solider.

He nodded and allowed his eyes to drop shut, the sounds of her and Talos whispering accompanied by the hum and pings of electronic machines lulling him back to sleep.

The second time he woke the lights were brighter.Talos sat on the far corner of the room in a chair, a reading tablet and writing stylus in his hands.

“How long was I out?” Yon-Rogg croaked.

Talos strode slowly across the room to the side table.A pitcher of water and a glass rested on the surface.He poured a glass and held it out to Yon-Rogg, who took the offering greedily, emptying the contents before passing it back.“About twelve hours since your little outburst.”

Yon-Rogg groaned, recognizing the lingering bitter, metallic taste in his mouth and muddy coordination of limbs as side effects.“She gave me the sedative.”

Talos chuckled softly.“She did.Said you needed it.No one tells Soren how to run her med bay.”

Yon-Rogg was still too tired to give that much thought.

“Where am I?”

“We’re several jumps away from the system we found you in.You’re safe,” Talos answered.“Beyond that, what does it matter?”

There were plenty of things _beyond that_ which mattered. Carol, to start. But he didn’t want to ask about Carol.It was bad enough Talos knew how Carol protected him.The Skrull likely had already learned how Yon-Rogg felt about her through Drovk.His personal feelings were hardly appropriate fodder for the general. There was nothing he could ask that wouldn’t open him to further ridicule or— worse still— pity.

Exhaustion still sat heavily on him and the room swam slowly in languid waves. He wasn’t up to a lengthy conversation about Carol or anything under the circumstances. Yon-Rogg shrugged off Talos’ question rather than indulge in further conversation.

The Skrull woman from before entered.“This is Soren.” Talos seemed to swell with pride as he placed a hand on her shoulder.“She’s a medical doctor and my mate.”

Soren asked after him with a warm greeting as she approached before she began her strike with precise, calculated questions. A kind word to disarm before lining up a series of attacks. Probing questions, vitals read and recorded, directives to look into a light, or look away; he felt like a lab specimen by the time the exam had concluded.

Eventually she relayed the extent of his condition.Dehydration, the beginnings of malnutrition, deep scratches on his hands from the unforgiving brush, and mild exposure.Relatively minor considering what he could have sustained as he picked through the wilderness for three weeks before his rescue, but severe enough that if he were on Hala, they would give him a transfusion from his reserve blood out of a precaution. Instead he was hooked up to fluids and drugs and confined to bed rest. He knew he should have expressed gratitude, but instead it felt like another cage even if he lacked the strength to oppose it.

Exhaustion clung to him, a companion wholly separate and distinct from the haze of the anesthetics.He felt weak.He felt removed.He felt Un-Kree.

Soren held up a small mirror to his face.“I’m sorry, but it’s going to leave a scar.”She lifted a sympathetic finger and pointed to the jagged line where Nem-Esis had struck with a piece of his gauntlet.“It was left untreated too long.”

“It’s no matter,” he said, though it was a lie uttered with a disaffected lilt to conceal his wounded pride.He was lucky to escape the encounter with his life, no matter how much his vanity might protest.

The encouraging speech formed easily in his mind, the lies he would tell a subordinate if they had such a scar.Words to build up and take heart in overcoming an adversary who had the advantage of surprise.But it brought little comfort.Regardless of the odds, he always thought of himself as better than those in his command.Another lie he told himself, apparently.Another truth to accept and overcome.

As Soren left, Yon-Rogg turned his attention back to Talos and tried again.“Where have you taken me?”

“Shouldn’t be that surprising, you’ve been here before.”

“Mar-Vell’s ship?”

Talos nodded.

Yon-Rogg released a ragged sigh.What little he had picked up on from briefings, Mar-Vell’s cruiser served as the Skrull’s flagship. There would be no hurried evacuation from a way station or sneaking away from a safe house. It was really over, then. All the days remaining on edge, secreting away his thoughts to avoid detection.All the nights he laid awake a wondered what would become of him if he were discovered.He was past it.

But that didn’t answer the larger question.

“I don’t understand.How did you find me?”He squinted up at Talos.

“Where’s the device?”Talos looked around as if it would suddenly appear.

Yon-Rogg looked at him, confused and uncertain.

“The rock from Drovk.”Talos gestured questioningly with his hands, then stopped abruptly and chuckled at his rhyme.

Yon-Rogg gestured towards his uniform still slung across the adjacent chair.Talos began picking through the belt compartments until, at last, he withdrew the pebble.The Skrull began flipping the object over in one palm, running a finger along the edge.The device tumbled open and Talos withdrew a small, flat object roughly the diameter of his thumbnail before returning the device to its usual closed shape.

“Short range transponder,” he said as he set the disc and the stone down on the side table.“Granted it took a while to locate the system you were in.Once we found the system, the signal was automatic.”

“You’ve been tracking me this entire time?”

Maybe back at the beginning, before Drovk had simmed him, Carol had only consented to tracking him.Maybe they had all agreed upon the condition, or maybe Talos and Drovk had arranged it without Carol’s knowledge.Either way it both mattered and it didn’t.While the bitter memory of how the Skrulls, how Carol, had once viewed him with distrust still lingered, he would have died on that colony if not for their precautions.

“You sure you want to complain about that now, or would you rather say ‘thank you Talos, for sending a shuttle to save my sorry hide?’”

He wanted to protest against deliberately being kept in the dark again.But he remained silent.He may have operated for months under Talos’ chain of command, but he was skeptical that all past wrongs had been simply forgotten.They would never be completely erased, even if he spent the rest of his life diligently following Talos’ orders.And railing against a lie of omission would give Talos his own opening to remind Yon-Rogg of his own factual exclusions once long ago with his own recruit. Annoyance crept over him, but he remained silent. It wasn’t worth it.

A commotion was heard beyond the medical room.Raised voices clashed in an unintelligible din.

“That would be the missus,” Talos remarked with dry amusement.“She’s been a real piece of work since you went missing.You should have heard her when we told her you’d been found.”

He clapped Yon-Rogg on the arm, aggressive but almost commiserating.He moved towards the entrance, passing Carol who barreled past him looking as if she just stepped onto the ship, uniform and all.Her wide, wild eyes darted about the room.

Her gaze snared his and she let out a long, shuddering breath.Shoulders sagged and she swayed on her feet before crossing to the chair by his side, dropping into the seat, heedless of his uniform still draped over it.

Carol continued to stare at him, eyes fixed and unblinking for a long moment that seems to stretch and grow in the space between them.Then he realized she was looking past him, gazing at the twisted echos of what could have been, what might have been if Yon-Rogg had been a little slower grappling against Nem-Esis or Talos had flown a little too fast through that quadrant and missed his signal.Instead of a cut down his face, it could have been a mortal gash at his side.Instead of recovering from exposure, he could have returned to her having succumbed to the elements.He watched all the different fears fluttered behind her eyes before, blinking away the taunting whispers of death and failure, she finally allowed relief to trickle in.

“You’re alive,” she observed.She spoke as if commenting the weather, as if he didn’t know her well enough to see past her neutral tone.

It was the first time they had been together in the same space since this all began, since she bundled him into that dropship with her message on his lips and icy fears in his heart.Fears for his future, however long it would be.But now everything burned brighter, full of hope and promise for something better.

He permitted himself to entertain that yearning wish to grow, nurturing it in the quiet moments locked away in his home that one day, eventually, he would see her again.That the next time he might be worthy of her trust.It had almost been snatched away.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he said drolly.

“You don’t have to fake it around me.”She whispered a secret: “I was scared too.”

“Were you?” he asked mildly.

She nodded.

If Yon-Rogg had expected teasing, or Carol to make light of his disappearance, the look in her eye dispelled all thoughts in that vein.Her brown eyes were hooded, guarded.There was no telltale crinkle at the corners that would signal a blooming smile.Her face was placid and drawn.

He realized with growing comprehension, she had been terrified.A part of her remained terrified even after the immediate danger had passed, as if she too, couldn’t believe it was truly over.

But why should she have been terrified for him when there had been a short-range tracker on his person nearly the entire time?She never needed to endure the moments that stretched on and on, waiting for word, fearing the worst and having those fears compounded as more time elapsed.She didn’t need to wait for him to activate a signal beacon when the Skrulls had handed him a tracker all along.Couldn’t they have found him at any time? Wasn’t that the point?

“But you had me chipped,” he said, voice calm and neutral.It wasn’t an accusation, but still her eyes went cold and wary.Bracing herself as if he would try to pit his sense of betrayal against hers.

Her eyes burned into him and her voice pulled taut.“Obviously it was needed since you never contacted us for rescue.”

He looked down at the blanket covering his legs and began picking at an errant thread.“I was trying to protect you, all of you, in case the Kree were monitoring outbound communications,” he offered in a dull voice, staring fixated as his fingers worked a hole in the fabric.

“Well, maybe _I_ was trying to protect _you_ ,” she shot back, matching his low volume.

“I’m well aware of your coddling.”

She leaned back sharply.“What is that supposed to mean?”

He sighed, the tension settling heavy on him.He understood the fear, the uncertainty that came with sending a friend into combat.It was part of the very reason such attachments were frowned upon in the military.When even a friendship could compromise a commander’s sense of duty to the Collective, when the loyalty to the whole was threatened by loyalty to an individual, Yon-Rogg’s attachment to Vers had been his first true brush with treason.

Even before he recognized the full extent of his affinity for the strange Terran that he had been charged with training, he personally threw up delays. Her trials that he was unable to personally oversee, he postponed. Despite knowing her skills, he was loath to allow her liberty for missions without him. As much as it shamed him, it was less to do with her abilities, and more to do with his need to protect her, to control what she would face.To control what could go wrong.Had he been able to keep a tighter rein on his own fears, she could have joined the ranks of Starforce a full year earlier.But had he not failed so spectacularly, they wouldn’t be here.

He knew what it meant to hinder someone while whispering silent assurances that it was all done to help, to simultaneously know their strength while fearing for them. But that wasn’t trust. Not really.

It was easier when they fought together rather than apart.

“It means exactly that, Carol.At some point you have to allow me to join the fray.”

Maybe it would be easier for her too.

She glanced down at her hands, neatly folded in her lap.Yon-Rogg glanced over.Her knuckles were white.“I was afraid your cover would be blown.”

He cracked a sardonic smile.“I have bad news for you about that.”

She snickered in response, but her eyes remained downcast and focused on her tense hands.He reached out a hand and batted her interlocked hands out of her lap.Fingers broke apart and hung out in front of her knees.At least her knuckles were no longer white.He almost dared to lace his fingers with hers, but instead let his arm swing off the edge of the cot.

“I’m had worse trips,” he said.

Then he chanced a look at her face.She was lost in her own private world, undoubtedly again allowing her fears during his absence to play out in her mind.They died away soon after they formed, dissipating into the recesses of her imagination.It was over.

He tried again.“I told you everything would be fine.”

A slight frown tugged at her lips, but she looked up, staring at him full-on and nodded.It wasn’t agreement, but it would do if it shook away the last of her lingering horrors.

She pressed her fingers under his chin, tilting his head to the side.“A souvenir?”She ran the pad of her thumb over the gash.

“I had to find someone to spar with.It didn’t go too well.”

She barked out a laugh and another piece of the tension fell away.He felt brave enough to press his luck.

“Talos said you were... on edge since I dropped off of comms.”

Her hand dropped away and she leaned back into the side chair.He felt the absence, the distance, immediately.

“You want me to say that finding you was all I could think about?”She laughed, her voice airy and light, but she didn’t sound amused. She was guarded.

“Think of how a kind word could aid in my recovery,” he said with a demanding plea with words that sounded too much like something Vers would have said.

Carol rolled her eyes.“Soren says you’re going to be fine.”

“But, I could be better than fine,” he said with a smile coloring his voice.

She grinned.“I have missed you.”

“And I’ve missed you.”More than he should admit, he had missed her.Foolishly and desperately, he had missed her.Despite all the lingering tension and all that laid before them, he felt a sense of peace that he had couldn’t recall feeling, not since before Torfa and perhaps never before.

“Promise me you won’t go radio silent next time you’re stranded somewhere?”

“As I said, I was afraid the Kree would be monitoring the planet and intercept anything I sent.”

“You could have died, Yon,” she said seriously.

“Soren says I’m going to be fine,” he threw her words back, teasing, unwilling to let her slip into melancholy worries again.

“She also says you still have another day of fluids before she’ll let you out of here.”

He groaned.Another day imprisoned on a medical cot while the world spun beyond the doors.“If I was back on Hala, they’d have some of my blood stored,” he muttered mostly to himself.

“Do you need it?’Her eyebrows furrowed and her voice took on a worried edge.Her left hand fumbled to roll up the cuff on her right sleeve.

She had no idea what she offered as casually as one would offer to pass a nearby object.No idea how without hesitation or artifice, she laid the one thing he most wanted at his feet.And oh, how he wanted it.The bond that transcended death, or so the poets said.Through the lingering haze of the analgesics, that thought rung true.

“Don’t,” he dismissed her efforts with a wave of his hand.“I’ll just take stay on the fluids.”

Her hand dropped away from her sleeve and again he felt the full intensity of her attention on him.How had he spent years ignoring this before, or was he simply out of practice?He counted back, had it truly been nearly six months since C-53?So long apart and here he was acting like a fool.Again.

Carol didn’t seem to notice.She leaned forward again and stretched out her arm.The pad of her thumb traced over the wound.

“Does it bother you?” he asked.

He might be bothered for vanity’s sake, but there was the very real concern that every time Carol’s eyes landed on the scar she would remember his fragility.Compared to her, they were all fragile beings, but she already shielded him far more than the rest of her team.This was the same woman who used to delight in blasting him across the gym, trying to prove to him just how strong she was, even if he already knew.

She shook her head.Then after a moment’s hesitation, leaned forward.Her lips brushed the bottom of the scar, just missing the corner of his mouth.A hand reached to cup her cheek.He tilted his head, catching her lips in a soft kiss, quiet and innocent but full of promise.

She drew back, a faint smile fighting to make itself known.

“I feel better than ever,” he whispered.


End file.
